Excuse me Tim, UK farmers are more than willing to meet demand, but this government is selling down them the river. You just have to look at the pig farmers who were reduced to slaughtering on farm because of Brexit and those idiots who don’t want people to come to their country to do jobs that Brits don’t want to do.
The same goes for fruit and veg farmers, trying to get pickers and packers.
The increased bureucracy for exporters means that small producers have given up on EU markets to the detriment of their bottom line.
I could go on, but you don’t like it when people speak the truth about what is going on in UK at the moment.
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This is absolutely spot on. Consumers will ultimately eat/buy what they’re told to buy. If a supermarket perceives it can charge 30p for a ‘perfect’ apple but only 15p for one that is misshapen they’ll push the ‘perfect’ one, and would probably pay the virtually same basic price for both themselves. Margins are so tight often in FMCG that if a supermarket (or any retailer) can point to any minor thing that they can use to justify a more profit for them, it matters not whether there’s customers want or don’t want it, the need will be created for them. They’re also of course lazy, so if they have to spend lots of time and money to convince people to buy something out of the ordinary, they’d rather just create a premium line or add value to an existing product and know they will have to make little effort or expense.
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I was interested to see that Leclerc were pushing/asking the government “to be allowed” to offer lower prices… for foodstuffs and essentials… it would be a nice move I reckon.
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I suppose it depends whether it starts a U.K. style race to the bottom with prices. SF is full of people saying they’re happy to pay more than they would in the U.K. as it keeps the whole system from farmer to supermarket and all the various steps between more viable, and if Leclerc makes less money so will everyone else in the chain ultimately, they’ll employ less staff or cut qualities elsewhere or even if they say ‘we’ll take the hit and won’t pass it on to suppliers’ they ultimately will somewhere somehow. It’s an incredibly difficult situation really.
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It has been for ages.
It imports a lot of dried egg for industrial cooking, eg biscuits , cakes etc.
Loads of Dutch bacon too!
Many supermarkets will only take what they have agreed to on the contract with the farmer. This was shown when pork was backing up on farms and growing too big because there was a shortage of butchers.
The supermarkets would not take bigger joints or chops, as they assumed that their customers would not want them.
The price agreed in the contract is for perfect fruit and veg, many will not even want to take irregularly shaped fruit and eg and if they do will certainly not pay the same as for ‘perfect’ produce.
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This is not about Brexit, UK dairy and livestock farmers can’t compete with cheap imports and 0000’s left the industry over the last couple of decades and whilst the majority wouldn’t consider returning some would if they thought they could make a go of it financially but that’s not going to happen if consumers aren’t prepared to pay more.
Yes, I know Leclerc are doing sterling service but they want to do more…
Leclerc was talking about the %age which is set by Law and Le clerc wants that %age reduced which means they can cut their prices… not just offer a few specials.
So many years ago, Welsh lamb farmers were urging us to Buy British and not the cheaper product from NZealand…
I became aware of their plight and paid the price… Welsh Lamb was delicious and NZ never came home with me ever again.
However, I was working and was prepared and able to pay the price…
Most of the food price rises are not directly caused by brexit - but some are indirectly influenced by it because it has raised the cost of doing business generally in the UK (eg. the cost of fruit and vegetable pickers, transport, additional paperwork, etc).
But it is ‘about’ brexit in another more profound way. The real logic of brexit was deregulation - the right’s desire to move away from the European Social Model further towards the US free-market-free-for-all model - ie. precisely further down the ‘race to the bottom’ outlined by @kirsteastevenson.
It’s no secret (there are a number of posts and links on this in the climate/ecological breakdown thread) that France’s inflation rate is half the UK’s precisely because it - along with most other EU member states - has retained public ownership, a not-for-profit mutual sector, and regulatory frameworks that enable it to cushion market effects.
Yet Richy Rishi has just made a speech saying ‘there’s nothing we can do about market prices’!
Yes Richy - because your party has ditched all the tools the UK had to do it!
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Pull the other one Tim. Of course Brexit is a factor.
I think we’re talking at cross purposes, my comments are about self-sufficiency not the cost of living.
Brexit has of course increased inflationary pressure in the UK but the self-sufficiency issue goes back much further than 2016.
