UK supermarket probe intensifies
The Competition Commission inquiry into Britain’s grocery sector has said that it was looking at whether Tesco and other supermarkets stifled competition by creating strangleholds in local communities.
The Competition Commission, in an update on its inquiry, said it had not detected widespread problems in the relationship between supermarkets and suppliers. “However, we have some concerns about farmers and we have not received as much specific evidence about unfair treatment of suppliers as we might have expected,” the commission said.
Commission chairman Peter Freeman said the next focus would be at the local level. “We are not here to punish success or individual retailers but we are concerned with whether Tesco, or any other supermarket, can get into such a strong position, either nationally or locally, that no other retailer can compete effectively,”
Todays progress report stopped short of drawing any conclusions about practices in the sector. Having gathered a large amount of evidence, the review panel will now look at matters in detail before publishing its provisional findings.
Mr Freeman added “We have found that bigger buyers do not always appear to get better terms from suppliers, and food and drink manufacturers and processors, as well as wholesalers, seem to be in reasonable shape.”
