Retailer Morrisons has pledged not to sell fake farm brands, with farmers in the past severely criticising other supermarkets for the practice.
Morrisons has recently hosted hundreds of real farmers in its stores who will be selling British food to customers.
More than 70% of the food that Morrisons sells this week will be British, which is the highest share it reaches during the year.
British lamb, soft fruits, summer vegetables such as broccoli, courgettes and sweetcorn, salad ingredients, and new potatoes reach the peak of their seasonality.
Morrisons is also introducing the opportunity to ‘Meet the Real Farmer’. Farmers will explain the benefits of home-grown food to customers.
With 83 per cent of the UK population living in urban areas (Source: ONS 2016), 46 per cent of Brits have never met a farmer, 32 per cent have never visited a working farm and 52 per cent say they don’t know how the food they buy is grown.
Fake farm brands
Fake farm brands can give an impression that food comes from a British farm, market or town when it may in fact be imported from overseas.
The farming industry has reacted angrily to the branding, accusing retailers of misleading consumers and riding on the coattails of the trust UK farmers have built.
The most recent and high profile example is Tesco’s introduction of brand names such as ‘Woodside Farms’ and ‘Boswell Farms’.
Yorkshire pig farmer and former National Pig Association chairman Richard Longthorp said Tesco appeared to have 'forgotten the lessons about trust it should have learned from the horsemeat scandal.
Real farm names
Morrisons is making the commitment to stop the sale of these brands as 70 per cent of UK adults say they object to the use of fake farm brands and only want real place names or farm names to be used on packaging and branding.
Joe Mannion head of British Livestock at Morrisons, said: “Real farmers have an important role to play in explaining to customers how important real British food is, and how customers can tell whether food is from the UK or not.
“Supermarket customers are sometimes presented with misleading images of farmers on their food and we believe that by meeting our real farmers, customers will see and value that we know where our food comes from.”
