Sainsburys and Waitrose Buy British

Two supermarkets, Sainsburys and Waitrose have announced that from now on their own label dairy products will be sourced from British Farmers.

Now while this is good news for British farmers, the question is why on earth did they stop buying from British farmers in the first place. Now the obvious answer is that there was a greater profit margin. But as neither of these businesses were loss making, both are guilty of exploiting their strong market position and treating the farms that supply them like slaves.

The supermarkets in general have been guilty of downward pressure on the growers and suppliers so that farmers were liable to go bust if they did not accept the prices the supermarkets were willing to pay. Further, if they spoke out about their supermarket pay masters they would loose the sales and their businesses.

This means that the largest retailers are guilty of destroying large parts of the farming industry, as well as enforcing a lowering of welfare standards in agriculture.

None of the supermarkets are free of guilt here, they all do this as the senior staff are just far to focused on the profits and the bottom line. Based upon the mistaken assumption that there would always be supply and that prices could always be pushed down.

While the government has started to take notice of the problem of food security, the government have thus far just allowed the major retailers to call the shots. The problem of food security and the vast distances that food is transported effects all areas of policy. I have spoken many times about the health problems regarding food policy and the supermarkets. But the cheep food policy also has the effect of keeping the poor poor and the low nutritional standards of the highly processed food the poor can afford to buy prevents children learning too.

The fact that two supermarkets are now seeking praise for something they should have been doing anyway, is ridiculous. To me it is like an abusive husband trying to claim credit for no longer beating his wife. While I am pleased to hear that organisations that have been doing wrong are changing their ways, they (the supermarkets) have a long way to go before they can ask for the praise they seek.