The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee will next week take evidence from food processors and manufacturers, holding its third evidence session exploring Fairness in the food supply chain.
The session on Tuesday aims to give MPs the opportunity to examine the impact of inflation on suppliers’ and manufacturers’ costs, and will explore how food production costs, food prices and retail prices interact.
Committee members will investigate how inflation has affected the food supply chain, whether certain links are benefiting from increased prices, and how far companies are employing the practice of ‘shrinkflation’ – where food items are downsized by manufacturers while being sold for the same price.
MPs are expected to question witnesses on whether there is fair dealing between processors and producers, particularly in the pig and dairy sectors, and are likely to ask whether there is sufficient competition between processors to allow producers a variety of options.
The Committee will probe whether the structural relationships between food producers, manufacturers, and retailers could be improved.
Meanwhile, the session will also examine manufacturers’ role in promoting affordable and healthy food, questioning whether manufacturers are being proactive in promoting the purchase of healthier products.
Industry executives that will face questioning include Bas Padberg, UK Managing Director of Arla Foods, Sarah Arrowsmith, Chief Executive of Associated British Foods, Dominic Hawkins, UK Head of Supply Chain at Kraft Heinz, and Marc Woodward, UK and Ireland Head at Unilever.
Earlier this year, EFRA hosted a session at which farming bosses urged the government to ensure supermarkets recognised farm input inflation and offered fairer prices.
NAM Implications:
- Anticipate misunderstandings re supply chain dynamics diluting consumer trust in the process.
- i.e. any examination of how inflation has affected the food supply chain…
- ….whether certain links are benefiting from increased prices…
- …and how far companies are employing the practice of ‘shrinkflation’…
- …is fraught with potential misunderstanding, especially in the New Norm.
- Over to you….
