RETAIL MARGINS:THE EUROPEAN Commission is to undertake a review of anti-competitive practices in the food supply chain and will focus on the dairy and pigmeat sectors, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture was told yesterday.
It had met to discuss the crisis in the dairy sector and to hear a submission from Tom Moran, secretary general of the Department of Agriculture and Food.
Mr Moran told members who had complained that the large retailers were pushing down the price for dairy farmers that the matter had been discussed at great length at the meeting this week of agriculture ministers.
He said Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith had joined his counterparts from countries including Poland to highlight the difficulties caused in the food sector by the control multiples had on the food supply chain.
In a statement, the Minister said the issue of retail margins had become the point of heated public debate in recent times and that had been reflected at the farm minister’s meeting.
“Underlying the recent debate is the increasing concentration of retail power in the hands of a few large supermarket chains. This is an international phenomenon which has fundamentally changed the balance of market negotiating power in the food chain.
“This is one factor, although not the only one, behind the declining share of retail prices which is passed back to producers . . .
“While fully recognising that retailers must strike a reasonable balance between granting price reductions to consumers and giving a fair return to suppliers and producers, this should not be done at the expense of a viable European agri-food sector.”
Mr Moran defended the Government’s policy in the dairy sector to the Oireachtas committee at a time of unprecedented and extreme volatility in dairy prices.
The increase in the milk quota meant that 375 million litres had already been transferred to active producers and Ireland’s quota would increase by 9.3 per cent by 2014, when the system would end.
