The retailer levy available to the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) has doubled to £2 million pounds.
The levy available to the GCA is used to fund investigations into retailers which may have breached the Groceries Supply Chain Code of Practice.
However, unspent levy must be returned and this increase in the amount of levy available therefore allows the Adjudicator to have a ‘float’ to fund potential investigations into bad or unfair practices.
The Farmers Union of Wales has welcomed the move.
"The initial levy pot available to the adjudicator was £800,000 and this cost was split between the 5 major retailers," said FUW Senior Policy Officer Dr Hazel Wright.
"This significant increase should aid the adjudicator in funding investigations and is a positive step forward in identifying unfair practices, improving transparency and fostering accountability in the supply chain."
The Groceries Code applies to those supermarkets with a turnover of greater than 1 billion pounds
The Farmers' Union of Wales has repeatedly called for this threshold to be lowered in order to cover more retailers.
Dr Wright added that the Groceries Code still does not cover indirect suppliers to supermarkets or the voluntary dairy code.
Whilst this move to increase the levy collected must be welcomed, there remains more work to be done in order to improve the position of farmers in the supply chain.
The Adjudicator cannot launch any investigation into a retailer without information from suppliers, unions have therefore encouraged relevant members to fill in the supplier survey which was launched last month on the Adjudicator’s website.
