The food and drink industry and food poverty campaigners have delivered an emphatic message to the Scottish government: plans to cap the price of essential supermarket items simply won’t work.
More than 60 representatives from trade bodies, retailers, manufacturers and charities attended the behind-closed-door meeting in Holyrood yesterday.
According to one source, the government achieved an unintended first by failing to find a single supporter of the proposal among those in the room.
Attendees took part in roundtable discussions to consider practicalities of the government plans, after the government published draft plans last week.
The proposed draft legislation would introduce a controversial price cap on essential supermarket products, with retailers required to limit prices on a raft of essential food items. The rules would apply to retailers generating more than 50% of their annual turnover from grocery, employing more than 250 staff and recording revenues of than £250m per year.
The list of products that will qualify is being consulted upon, but will include up to 50 products such as bread, eggs and milk. The model illustrated in the draft legislation would require retailers who sell any of the qualifying products on the government’s list online or in store to have at least one product in the category for sale at or under the price cap.
Making prices fairer
Despite warnings it will face a furious battle in the courts, the meeting was called to try to gather ideas on how to make prices “fairer”.
A source told The Grocer: “It was a total embarrassment for the government. Absolutely nobody in the room thought that price capping was a good idea. It had zero support.”
It’s understood groups such as the Trussell Trust and the Poverty Alliance, which attended the meeting, also told ministers that its plans were not the answer to tackling food poverty and would not help the people it serves.
FDF Scotland CEO David Thomson said: “The summit had participants from farming, fishing, manufacturing, poverty groups, academia and the public sector.
”From the conversations I heard, everyone agreed that people should not have to choose between food and other essentials. However, not one person thought that price capping food in supermarkets would achieve that aim.”
Ewan MacDonald-Russell, deputy head of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: “Quite a surreal day at the government’s price cap summit. I’ve never been at an event where there was such consensus – that food affordability is a huge issue, but that no one’s preferred option is capping grocery prices.”
The SNP government has launched a consultation on its plans, which were promised as one of its priority policies for its first 100 days in power, which comes to an end in November.
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