Andrew Arbuckle: Whatever the forecast, the supermarkets get their food

LAST Monday was a foul day – the sort of day the strength of the wind was preventing the rain falling vertically and was instead battering it against the car windscreen where the wipers were in top gear trying to cope.

With my farmer’s eye straying away from the road and onto the neighbouring fields, I saw the broccoli-cutting rig inching its way across the land. Behind it, a number of workers swathed in oilskins were working. It must have been very unpleasant. Why were they working in such miserable conditions?

The simple answer is because the order for the supermarket had to be filled and in today’s world, what the supermarket wants, it gets.

I am sure that, in other parts of the farming world, shepherds clad as best they could against the sodden weather were picking out lambs ready for the abattoir, which in turn was working to fill orders for the grocers.

Elsewhere, potato growers would be up to their oxters in mud as they lifted crops that will arrive on the supermarket shelves in little polythene bags with not an ounce of earth to indicate they came out of the soil.

No sector supplying food has the luxury of using the weather as a reason for non-supply, if they are at the beginning of the food chain in the present day.

Consumers are bombarded with TV adverts and posters showing cows in bright sunny meadows, sheep frolicking on hilltops, rustics leaning on forks holding potatoes in their hands and saying in a voice with a deep burr “they be smashing taters” – but they do not get the reality.

The weather does not come into the equation for those multiples who require shelves full of produce, not signs saying bad weather prevented supplies getting through.

The irony for me this past week is that these self-same retailers seem to have managed to neuter the Adjudicator Bill that after years of promises is about to come through parliament.

Back before the general election, all three main parties vying for power at Westminster made promises to sort out inequalities in the food chain. The intent was to ensure primary producers and processors were not financially screwed to the wall by the power of the big retailers.

And indeed, earlier this year, Westminster’s business, innovation and skills committee brought forward a number of recommendations that would have ironed out the bumps in the supply chain – but they have now bitten the dust.

Among the discarded proposals was one that would have financially penalised any major retailer for misusing its purchasing power. Too strong for the UK government, which, while accepting that such a move would provide an incentive for retailers to comply with the groceries code, decided to keep this in reserve. Noticeably, the comment on the discard of this and other proposals from the BIS committee by the Food and Drink Federation, acting for retailers, described it as a step forward.

So, while there is an Adjudicator Bill coming along, it looks as if it will provide a pretty toothless thing that the majors can thumb their noses at.

Why the political change? The supermarkets’ trump card was the hint that any regulation could see food prices rise. For a government facing an inflation rate of more than 5 per cent, that was some threat.

Despite what they may have claimed when out cavassing for votes, politicians know that cheap food is much, much better than rising shopping bills.