Supermarkets are rattled, customers don’t know where to turn and many eastern European horses are not deliriously happy either.
A number of our equine friends have found their way onto supermarket shelves masquerading as cows. The fact that the big food retailers have been unsaddled by recent events is their own fault.
You can go on about horse meat until the cows come home, but to the consumer two of the most important shopping factors are price and quality. It seems the supermarkets are getting the prices right, but their blinkered quest for profit is forcing their suppliers to forget about quality.
Kath Dalmeny, policy director of Sustain, a campaign for better food and farming, said, “When you apply special offers to meat you have to put pressure on suppliers to cut their costs in order to keep the contract.” Supermarkets are forcing suppliers to cut costs and corners.
Just days before horse meat stories galloped onto the front pages the new supermarket ombudsman received a plea from the union Unite asking that she investigate the relationship between supermarket bosses and the farmers and growers.
Unite wants to protect agricultural workers incomes which are destined to fall with the prospective abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board which protects workers pay. In scrapping the AWB the government is yielding to the influence of the supermarkets.
Supermarkets are forcing their suppliers to sell products to them for minimal profit. The National Farmers’ Union has suggested the suppliers live in a “climate of fear and oppression”.
The benefit to a supplier of selling products in large volumes to a chain of supermarkets is obvious. Equally, they are fighting for a living against a harsh economic backdrop. The pressure on them to perform is immense.
Power has a tendency to corrupt, breed arrogance and a disregard for others and the big four supermarkets have power in abundance.
ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys together control 75% of the grocery market in the United Kingdom. They promise their customers cheap shopping with an increasing portfolio of goods available all under one roof.
Their power comes from performing that role well for years, by keeping prices low and profits high. You could say that they have been an unbridled success (sorry). It is however increasingly at the expense of those that source their products and now those that consume them.
Their enormous size and influence puts suppliers under incredible pressure to produce goods as cheaply as humanly possible.
An anonymous supplier told the BBC in 2009, “You just get an e-mail or a letter demanding an immediate cut in costs. They have this mantra that the more they squeeze us, the more efficient we become – and if that means moving production abroad then so be it, they don’t care.”
The supermarkets force the costs they pay for products down, they often demand large slotting fees for prime positions in their aisles, they get suppliers to fund BOGOFF deals, charge retrospectively for unscheduled promotions, are charged harsh penalties for late deliveries and insist suppliers pay for delivery and spoiled goods. Some suppliers say they are asked for lump sums known as listing fees, effectively to keep their products on the shelves.
When UK businesses are unable to meet the supermarkets wish for low prices the net is cast abroad, but Action Aid state that workers for supermarket suppliers abroad are receiving poor wages, job insecurity and were being denied basic human rights. It said that women in particular were suffering as a result.
The opening of smaller convenience-style stores by supermarket chains is killing any traditional local outlets that had survived the drain to out-of-town retail park shopping. You can open a current account, buy your television and clothes as you walk between the fish counter and the supermarkets tinned food aisle, but however smart, shiny and extensive the store it’s not prevented horse meat from being found in the ready meals.
While there is no excuse for taking short cuts in business, there are times when a suppliers desperation to keep up with a supermarkets increasingly stringent demands can be comprehended.
The act of slipping some cheaper horsemeat into an order consignment to either speed the process or reduce the costs is wrong, but when the supplier is worried about his business, paying his workforce and putting food on his own family’s plates it can at least be understood.
Supermarkets rule the roost. Anyone suggesting their monopoly is unhealthy gets swatted away by expensive lawyers, but we appear to be nearing breaking point.
As the supermarkets lock horns they are seemingly losing sight of what is important. In their attempts to compete with each other they are squeezing their suppliers so tightly something has got to give.
Maybe the first sign of that breakdown is horsemeat on their shelves. More worrying is what might come next.
JAMES BUTTLER
No horses have been harmed in the making of this blog.
