The relationship between trading partners is a little like that between lovers or spouses. Disputes can break out and explode in flames. Then, when the smoke dies down, you have to be extremely cautious before approaching each other again.

For several months now, the relationships between traditional retailers and their long-standing suppliers, the wholesalers, have been deteriorating. I choose my words very diplomatically; they are in a complicated situation.

It is easy to imagine that words have been especially hard for the greengrocers to find. I had the opportunity to give FPJ readers some tips about that.

Some weeks ago, the wholesale market of Rouen in Normandy celebrated its 40th anniversary - yes, Rungis is not the only market to turn 40 in 2009.

The board of the French wholesalers’ union took this opportunity to hold council, and some results were drawn from this. “We have decided to organise meetings between wholesalers and retailers in every wholesale market in France,” the union’s president, Bernard Piton, told French weekly Fld. “If we want to elaborate this industry dedicated to small retail, we must give upstream some visibility.”

This is a more than cautious attitude, but who could blame the wholesalers for that?

Piton is similarly cautious when it comes to the cancellation of most of the European fruit marketing standards, which are currently causing turmoil in the French fruit and vegetable industry.

He said: “We do not want a systematic position in favour of the re-establishment of the standards. If the industry settles upon inter-professional agreements for restoring these standards and if the state decides to extend them, they will not be enforceable for imported fresh produce.”

Wholesalers prefer to resolve the situation category by category. As Confucious once said, “the cautious seldom err”.