Are the supermarkets answerable to anyone?

The problem with big chains and the supply of UK grown food

By Venetia Carpenter

THESE days I fear supermarkets are not answerable to anyone. I have read, although I cannot verify, that 95 per cent of all UK food is now bought in supermarkets.

According to Statista, 83 per cent of all grocery shopping in the UK was done in supermarkets in December 2023.

In any case, anything 83 per cent and above gives supermarkets a huge share of the UK market. With this, it also gives supermarkets huge powers over where our food comes from, the quality of that food, how much they pay suppliers for that food and how much the consumers have to pay for it.

Successive Governments do not appear to have done much, if anything, to stop the growth in the power of supermarkets in the UK. Over the years, there have been successive public bodies responsible for ensuring fair trade in the UK.

There was the Monopolies Commission, the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Competition Commission.

The current organisation is the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). According to its website, this organisation is supposed to “help people, businesses and the UK economy by promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour”.

As I will detail further in this article, farmers are currently being treated unfairly on what is an unlevel playing field. Should the CMA not be looking at this issue?