Feature Potatoes
Potatoes for 9 cents in supers? Money needs to be added there
Two kilos of white-fleshed potatoes (after all, we are talking about Great Britain), a kilo of carrots or a pound of Brussels sprouts for 15p (approximately €0.18). English supermarkets are promoting the traditional vegetables for the Christmas meal in the days leading up to Christmas to attract as many customers to the store as possible. This sends a very wrong signal about the value of food, according to the British farmers' union NFU.
Attracting customers with a few extremely cheap products in the hope that they will also put more expensive products with a higher profit margin in their shopping carts. This is called the 'loss leader' strategy and is not uncommon in retail. Promoting vegetables creates wrong expectations among consumers according to the NFU. "Although promotions can have a positive impact on growers by stimulating sales volumes, growers have long been concerned about the impact that high discounts can have on consumers' expectations of the true value of British products," a spokesperson for the NFU told The Guardian. How do you explain to a consumer that just before Christmas, carrots cost 15p (€0.18) while they are on the shelf for 65p (€0.79) the rest of the year?
The other sore point for British farmers is who pays the bill for the bargain prices. Supermarkets claim that they bear the costs of the discount themselves, but farmers doubt that. Growers generally have long-term agreements with supermarkets. The gift that supermarkets give to consumers is incorporated into the annual price for the grower, according to a source from The Guardian. "Anyone selling a bag of carrots for 17p is suffering a huge loss," an insider told the newspaper. Such dynamics underscore the unequal power in agricultural supply chains. Farmers are facing rising production costs while the prices they receive for their products remain the same or even decrease.
