Allister supports EU investigation into supermarket abuse
23 April 2009
Traditional Unionist MEP Jim Allister has called for an immediate crackdown on supermarket abuse, responding as Tesco announced record annual profits this week of £3 Billion.
The MEP said,
“The retail market in the UK, and indeed across the EU has become dominated by a small number of very large supermarket chains, which has clearly created a major imbalance in the supply chain, leaving producers and suppliers in an extremely vulnerable position. That Tesco can boost its profits by 10% in a single year to £3bn, while at the same time suppliers have come under increasing pressure from supermarkets to cut costs at this time of recession, it is clear who the winners are in this strategy”.
“Last month, I supported the passing by the European Parliament of its ‘Food prices in Europe’ report, because of its robust calls for investigation of the large supermarkets operating within the EU. Clearly, if supermarket dominance continues to go unchecked, consumers too will increasingly suffer as choice, availability and quality is squeezed out of the market.”
“I will continue to support calls for an EU Commission investigation into the margin share in the supply chain. Someone somewhere is doing very nicely, but it certainly isn’t the producer, without whom there would be no produce for middle men and retailers to exploit”.
ENDS
