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> Tory colleague Selaine Saxby said supermarkets are importing “far too many products” Yikes -- do the Tories not have any economists at their disposal or do t

> Tory colleague Selaine Saxby said supermarkets are importing “far too many products” Yikes -- do the Tories not have any economists at their disposal or do they just choose not to listen to them?

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
This is 100% true. We rely very heavily on imports in winter. The majority of this stuff can be grown in the UK but isn't because UK supermarkets are obsessed with lower prices. We need more onshore production and higher prices. If you look at tomatoes, we actually had some domestic production but these places chose not to grow this winter knowing that supermarkets wouldn't pay the higher price. So they rely heavily on places like Morocco and Kenya that can offer lower prices, and sometimes that doesn't work out. I had a friend whose family ran one of the largest potato farms in the UK. They stopped working with supermarkets in the 90s because it was so horrendous (Tesco notoriously used to do multi-hour contract negotiations with farmers, they would deliberately not give them seats so they had to stand for the whole thing and turn the heat up in the room without giving them water, they also had specialist negotiators who were notoriously abusive...this is how the largest supermarket behaves), they did food service, and then they went into food manufacturing. It was the only way to retain margins (many of the largest food groups in the UK came out of farms that needed to keep moving up the supply chain because of pressure from supermarkets).
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  Supermarkets obsessing over lower prices is a good thing actually. Cheap food is like the first things societies need to be functional. Sucks for farmers, but the rest of us are eating good because of the work the markets put in.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Not when you already have extremely low prices. We aren't talking about massive numbers, literally pence in the kg. Most consumers wouldn't notice any difference, it is all totally pointless. The same is happening with eggs, with milk, supermarkets are playing "hard ball" with people whose choice is: receive the higher price, or produce nothing...we took the produce nothing option. We need local production that rewards people for work and investment. And you are saying "cheap food" is needed...okay, the price is low but there is no food. How does no food rank on your system of things required in society? You are clueless because you are, presumably, imagining somewhere like the US where food is cripplingly expensive. That isn't the case here, food is cheap but so cheap that often results in there being no supply of some products. People can't conceive of farmers and workers actually needing money to buy their own food.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

This is 100% true. We rely very heavily on imports in winter. The majority of this stuff can be grown in the UK but isn't because UK supermarkets are obsessed with lower prices. We need more onshore production and higher prices. If you look at tomatoes, we actually had some domestic production but these places chose not to grow this winter knowing that supermarkets wouldn't pay the higher price. So they rely heavily on places like Morocco and Kenya that can offer lower prices, and sometimes that doesn't work out. I had a friend whose family ran one of the largest potato farms in the UK. They stopped working with supermarkets in the 90s because it was so horrendous (Tesco notoriously used to do multi-hour contract negotiations with farmers, they would deliberately not give them seats so they had to stand for the whole thing and turn the heat up in the room without giving them water, they also had specialist negotiators who were notoriously abusive...this is how the largest supermarket behaves), they did food service, and then they went into food manufacturing. It was the only way to retain margins (many of the largest food groups in the UK came out of farms that needed to keep moving up the supply chain because of pressure from supermarkets).

HDThoreaun 4y ago
Supermarkets obsessing over lower prices is a good thing actually. Cheap food is like the first things societies need to be functional. Sucks for farmers, but the rest of us are eating good because of the work the markets put in.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Not when you already have extremely low prices. We aren't talking about massive numbers, literally pence in the kg. Most consumers wouldn't notice any difference, it is all totally pointless. The same is happening with eggs, with milk, supermarkets are playing "hard ball" with people whose choice is: receive the higher price, or produce nothing...we took the produce nothing option. We need local production that rewards people for work and investment. And you are saying "cheap food" is needed...okay, the price is low but there is no food. How does no food rank on your system of things required in society? You are clueless because you are, presumably, imagining somewhere like the US where food is cripplingly expensive. That isn't the case here, food is cheap but so cheap that often results in there being no supply of some products. People can't conceive of farmers and workers actually needing money to buy their own food.