2 Noll 2014, 16:44
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine has this evening welcomed the pledges made by Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and the Musgrave Group in recent weeks not to sell fruit and vegetables at below cost prices in the run-in to Christmas.
Last year, the selling of fruit and vegetables of a few cents per item provoked widespread protests among farmers and their representative organisations. The Committee would very much welcome if other major supermarket chains were to make a similar promise. It also wants the pledge to extend to all home produced fresh products, including poultry.
Chairman of the Committee Andrew Doyle TD says: “The selling of cut-price vegetables before Christmas last year highlighted many of the inequities in the food supply chain. As a Committee, we are acutely aware of the pricing pressures that primary producers are regularly subjected to, having published a comprehensive report on the matter in October 2013. The pledge by Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and the Musgrave Group to avoid below cost selling of fruit and vegetables this Christmas is therefore to be warmly welcomed.
“The Committee, bearing in mind the pressures on farm families across the country, would welcome a further undertaking for the pledge to cover all home produced fresh products including poultry. There would be no winners, should any retailer take a unilateral decision to run a similar promotional campaign to last Christmas. Consequently, the Committee calls on the remaining supermarket chains to promise not to run such a campaign in the coming weeks.”
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