I very much welcome the recent announcement that the European Commission has launched an investigation into the failure of supermarkets to pass price cuts on to shoppers. According to figures the cost of butter has fallen by 39% over the past year however the price paid by consumers has only gone down by 2%. The commission has also discovered that the price of skimmed milk powder was down 49%, cheese down 18% and milk down 31% but again the price paid by consumers has only fallen by 2%. This is totally unacceptable behavior from the supermarkets. Such discrepancies and delays in adjusting prices accordingly means that the dairy supply chain does not function efficiently. Also this deliberate attempt to prevent consumers from being able to benefit from lower prices effects the potential development for demand for dairy products which of course means that the pace and recovery of the sector is hindered.

I hope this investigation will look at the issue seriously because it’s about time that supermarkets understood that they can’t take the dairy sector or the customer for granted. There have been difficult times for the dairy industry over the years and it’s only fair that farmers can expect a reasonable return and that will never happen as long as this sort of thing is going on. As a party one of our policies is to introduce a supermarket ombudsman to oversee the relationship between retailers and suppliers and to protect the interests of farmers from the supermarkets. On the evidence we’ve seen recently we need this to happen sooner rather than later.