Feedback calls for indirect suppliers to receive same protection from Groceries Code Adjudicator

Today, the annual Groceries Code Adjudicator conference takes place in London, bringing together policy-makers, retailers and suppliers to discuss how to continue to improve relationships between retailers and their suppliers. While Feedback is pleased with the progress made since the creation of the Adjudicator in 2013, as part of the Groceries Code Action Network we continue to lobby for the remit of the Adjudicator to be extended to include indirect suppliers, who are vulnerable to unfair trading practices and the waste these can create.

Our research with suppliers around the world has found that overseas suppliers in particular find it difficult to dispute or seek redress for unfairly cancelled orders or other unfair trading practices. Read more about our research here.

Carina Millstone, Executive Director of Feedback, said:

“The UK should be proud that our Groceries Code Adjudicator leads global efforts to ensure our farmers get a fair deal for the food they supply to our supermarkets. We fully support the Groceries Code Adjudicator in its mission to eradicate the climate of fear that pervades the groceries market, and prevent big supermarkets inflicting unfair trading practices on their suppliers.

However, the GCA can currently only act to protect producers that supply supermarkets directly. Our research around the world has found that indirect suppliers need protection too, with poorer and less powerful suppliers overseas the most vulnerable to supermarkets and their middlemen pushing order produce they reject back down the food chain.

Cancelled orders and arbitrarily applied cosmetic standards cost farmers dearly, but they also cost the rest of us, in the damage wrought on our planet by producing food that is never eaten. Despite the efforts of the Adjudicator, the culture of fear among those growing our food is still all too present. The powers of the GCA must be strengthened to allow it to effectively defend all our interests from the might of Big Food.”