Are supermarkets profiteering?
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Grocery stores are under pressure – with food inflation still near record highs, some have accused them of profiteering and the UK’s competition watchdog is investigating.
So what’s the evidence, if any, that supermarkets and other smaller stores are taking advantage of consumers, and what is a reasonable profit margin in this industry anyway? Food suppliers, large and small, also have a role to play here – we look at how their margins impact prices.
And, with government ministers vowing to curb food price inflation, we ask whether a cap on the cost of some products would help.
Evan Davis is joined by guests from across the industry to try to get a clearer picture of the UK’s food supply chain, and ask how fair it is on customers.
Produced in Partnership with The Open University.
GUESTS
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, founder of The Black Farmer Teresa Wickham, retail analyst, fruit grower, and former advisor to Sainsbury’s and director at Safeway Chris Noice, communications director, Association of Convenience Stores
PRODUCTION TEAM
Producer: Simon Tulett Editor: China Collins Sound: Graham Puddifoot and Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, welcome to the programme. |
| 0:06.6 | And we thought we should start this new series talking about an issue that has had quite a lot of attention. |
| 0:12.5 | Supermarkets, food prices, and whether the supermarkets are coining it in at the moment, profiteering, |
| 0:19.0 | as the country suffers a cost of living crisis. |
| 0:22.4 | This means we need to discuss profits, what a normal margin is, what an excessive margin is, |
| 0:28.0 | and we'll have a look at the whole food supply chain. I've three guests with me to talk us through all of that. |
| 0:32.7 | Let us start with our first, Wilfred Emmanuel Jones, founder of the Black Farmer Range. Wilford, |
| 0:38.9 | you were on this programme more than a decade ago, I think. Just remind our listeners what your |
| 0:44.1 | products are. Yes, I was on the programme just when I started off, actually, the Black Farmer brand. |
| 0:48.8 | And so I'm sitting here nearly 20 years later. And believe it or not, I've survived actually being in the |
| 0:55.1 | supermarkets. We're known for our sausages. And it's a premium meat range, basically, yeah. |
| 1:00.2 | Call the black farmer. Now, you're black? Yes. Are you still a farmer? Because I sort of got the |
| 1:07.0 | impression you'd turn slightly more into buying the meat in and then processing it |
| 1:11.2 | and branding it rather than farming. No, but, oh yes, you look at me. I'm not a hands-on farmer. |
| 1:17.3 | It's just that you can't call yourself the black farmer and not have a farm. But in terms of |
| 1:21.1 | actually producing the stuff, I don't do that at all. It's always been working with the big |
| 1:26.1 | manufacturers because actually you would never |
| 1:29.3 | be able to survive as a small player. You've got to be part of a big entity. Okay. Now, I want to |
| 1:35.3 | get to the bottom of what normal margins are and what big margins are, excessive margins. I mean, |
| 1:42.5 | so your product, on your own website, |
| 1:44.3 | we did a quick scan, we've looked at premium gluten-free pork sausages 400 grams. |
... |
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