A House of Lords horticultural sector inquiry session on retail supply chains in July saw just one supermarket boss attend, despite the top six companies having been invited.
Horticultural sector committee chairman Lord Redesdale suggested to Tesco’s director for fresh food and commodities, Dominic Morrey, that ‘sitting there alone was not the best position to be in.’
Asked by Lord Watson to comment on why his competitors had not been prepared to ‘hold themselves to account to a parliamentary committee’, Mr Morrey said: “It is very important for us to be open and transparent about these matters. There is nothing that I would not want to come along and talk to you about.”
The session also heard from groceries code adjudicator (GCA) Mark White, who told the committee that remote working practices established during the pandemic, together with subsequent cost price pressures, had weakened relations between supermarkets and suppliers.
Mr Morrey said the viability of the growers who supply Tesco was ‘completely in our mutual interests.’
He claimed that ‘at no point’ would efficiency saving or cost-cutting ‘be to the detriment of returns to the ultimate farmer or producer.’
Mr White was asked if he ‘carried a big enough stick’ investigating supply chain issues with retailers. He defended taking a ‘collaborative approach’, saying it delivered much quicker solutions. “The ability to investigate and impose a fine is a very big motivator to ensure that the collaborative approach works,” he said.
He added that cost inflation following the pandemic and the start of the Ukraine war had seen retailers on the receiving end of ‘an avalanche of cost price increase requests’ but interventions from the GCA’s office had helped. “I certainly received a lot of complaints about how those requests were being dealt with in the earlier days,” he said. “I do not hear those same concerns now.”
Growers could now be helped by more timely agreement of supply contracts and a simplification of the audit requirements for those supplying several supermarkets, he said.