Some supermarkets are not working towards a sustainable supply chain, Waitrose technical manager Alan Wilson told delegates at the ADAS and Syngenta UK Vegetable Conference in Peterborough.
Wilson listed nine elements that he believed retailers should maintain in the supply chain to be sustainable: total sincere respect, honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, sense of humour, communications, long-term planning and constant improvement. “I would like to believe that all retail dealings with the supply chain have these qualities, but it just isn’t true,” he said. “Without all of these elements, you cannot have sustainability.
“It doesn’t happen overnight, and growers need to know that the supermarkets are not just going to disappear once the crops are in place, and that is what Waitrose is about: establishing long-term relationships. Quality is what our offer is about, and we are finding that sometimes striving for quality is actually a more sustainable way of doing things.”
Wilson demonstrated the retailer’s sustainable efforts, along with its potato supplier Solanum.
