Labour's new code for big stores won't be enough to save local food producers, says Charlie Brooks in the Daily Telegraph.
 
As part of its commitment to rural Britain, The Daily Telegraph sponsored the prize at this week's Countryside Alliance Awards – the "Rural Oscars" – for the country's best traditional business. The winner was a magnificent community-run pub in Grizebeck, Cumbria, with a butcher from Kent who helps slaughter local meat to reduce food miles and stress for the animals being highly commended.

The aim of these awards is to highlight how important local food production is to this country, something that has passed this Government by. It was no surprise, then, that Lord Mandelson failed to turn up to present the award for rural enterprise. But the Business Secretary is also offering country folk a far more significant slight by dragging his feet over the introduction of an ombudsman, which would force the supermarkets, the nemeses of local food production, to stop beating up their suppliers.

The Government has, admittedly, introduced a statutory code of good behaviour for the supermarkets, which came into force yesterday. But their bullying antics in the run-up to its introduction shows how little they can be trusted to treat our food producers equitably.

Three particularly insidious practices have been used to squeeze every last drop of profit from suppliers before the code comes in. First, the supermarkets have been demanding "opportunity to trade" payments: "goodwill" sums forked out by suppliers to keep existing contracts. There have been non-negotiable impositions of discounts: price cuts up to 15 per cent, on pain of orders being dropped. And farmers and packers have also been forced to bankroll a price war between chains over potatoes, by accepting retrospective contracts paying less.

It is hardly surprising, then, that out of every pound spent in a supermarket, only 8p makes it back to the farmer. And while it is all well and good to have a statutory code, there is little point having a rule book without a referee to enforce it. So why does Lord Mandelson shy away?

Partly, it is because there are plenty of people who welcome cheap food and celebrate the supermarkets' endeavours. But they fail to take into account the hidden environmental and social costs.

Food transport has been responsible for 33 per cent of the increase in road freight over the past 15 years, and for all of the pollution that creates. We import 95 per cent of the fruit we eat, and 50 per cent of the vegetables. If we could source all our food from within 12 miles of where it was eaten, we would save £2.1 billion a year in environmental and congestion costs.

There is also the packaging that non-local food creates. Of the 25 million tons of waste we generate every year, a staggering 33 per cent is food packaging. That is a significant cost to the nation.

Equally important, we have lost sight of where our food comes from. Independent local stores have been disappearing at an alarming rate – 2,000 in 2005 alone – which perhaps explains why, when I was out shooting pigeons last week, two youths shouted at me: "Why don't you get your food from the supermarket like everyone else?"

In a recent survey of children, 29 per cent of them thought beef burgers came from pigs. Some of them also claimed that yogurt was made from turkeys, cheese came from rats, eggs were laid by sheep and the main ingredient in crisps was plastic.

The worst long-term consequence of cheap supermarket food, however, will be the destruction of our capability to feed our population. We will then be a hostage to fluctuating oil prices, which will inevitably drive up the price of imported food. The Conservatives have committed this week to encouraging councils to source food locally. That, at least, is a start.

Daily Telegraph - 4/2/10