NFU gives evidence to the Competition commission

Peter Kendall, President of the NFU, led a team which gave evidence to the Competition Commission's inquiry into the Grocery Market yesterday.

During the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the NFU team answered questions on various elements of its written submission.

Richard Macdonald, director general of the NFU, said: "The main message from the NFU was that there is clear evidence of abuse of power within the supply chain and that the major retailers are in a dominant position. The NFU has argued current practices were not in the interest of consumers as quality, choice and safety of food products will be affected as suppliers are squeezed by the retailers.

"We also argued that the authorities, as regulators, needed to take a more proactive approach to identifying bad practice in the supply chain and competition policy should reflect the need for some rationalisation within the supply chain which would allow the industry to address market realities."

The inquiry team has asked for further detailed examples of supply chain relations and the NFU will be working on this in the coming weeks.