I’ve already put on record my support for an independent ombudsman, to oversee and enforce the code of practice that supposedly monitors supermarket relationships with their suppliers.

We all know there are significant issues in these relationships, across the board, and that the existing code has achieved nothing in its attempt to rectify them.

In the current economic climate, suppliers complain that their supermarket customers uniformly fail to recognise exchange rate fluctuation, spiralling energy costs and other inflationary factors, while demanding not less, but more financial input into their own activities from suppliers; kickbacks by any other name.

This is an endemic issue, fueled by the constant need to tender for business purportedly based on “close” relationships that are nigh on impossible to build as one buyer after another heads for the exit, or another category.

A lot obviously depends on whether anyone has the balls to finally put it on the line and tell an ombudsman the truth. Consequences or not, for many businesses the choice really comes down to making more money or calling in the receivers.

If no one stands up, the British Retail Consortium is going to be proved right; that there is no justification for a “multi-million pound quango which would ultimately be paid for by customers”. But we can all also see where many suppliers in this industry are heading.