The farmer at the centre of an historic High Court case against Aldi told MPs he was stonewalled by the Groceries Code Adjudicator when he first sought the aid of the supermarket ombudsman.
Sprout and brassica supplier John Clappison was at the heart of an extraordinary case against Aldi after he and his business partner took the discounter to court in 2024. The pair claimed Aldi had effectively put their farm out of business by delisting them without due notice and in contravention of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP).
As revealed by The Grocer in October, Aldi settled out of court last year. It followed a landmark court judgment that paved the way for the Adjudicator to advise on evidence, in a hearing that had been due to be held this year.
The case resurfaced yesterday in a hearing of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee when chairman Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael raised the treatment of the farmer as an example of the Adjudicator’s lack of willingness and resources to stand up to retailers on behalf of producers.
The committee quizzed Adjudicator Mark White over his track record in policing supermarkets, with MPs criticising the GCA’s reluctance to intervene and attacking White’s “collaborative” approach with retailers.
White, whose intervention in the Clappison case was seen as setting a precedent that could protect suppliers from future delists, had told the court in the Aldi case that GSCOP was the “gold standard” on such matters and should be at the heart of decisions.
Email evidence
Carmichael told the hearing the GCA’s attitude was very different when the farmer first went to him for help. As evidence, he read from an email he received from Clappison in March last year.
“Mark White’s office pointed me in the direction of Aldi who in turn said they’d done nothing wrong,” the email from Clappison said.
“At no time did I ever get any help or encouragement from the GCA, just when a bit of hand-holding and assurance would have gone a long way. ”
Carmichael asked White: “Does that sound like the gold standard of market regulation?”
The Efra chair criticised White’s approach of working closely with supermarket code compliance officers to enforce the code and pilloried the track record of the GCA role, which has included just three formal investigations since it was created 13 years ago, the latest ongoing against online giant Amazon.
He said White was “riding with the horses and then riding with the hounds” at the same time. He claimed there was widespread mistrust among suppliers about the willingness of the Adjudicator to stand up to supermarkets, as well as fear of repercussion if they did come forward.
Carmichael told the Commons there was a “massive power imbalance” between the supermarkets policed by the Adjudicator and the suppliers he was supposed to protect.
“You can understand why people who are supplying supermarkets would be reluctant to come forward,” he told White.
Speaking to The Grocer in 2023, another supplier, Deane Proctor, also claimed he had been blanked the Adjudicator. Proctor’s fruit & veg firm had taken Lidl to the High Court alleging the business had been unfairly delisting with disastrous consequences.
Proctor claimed he repeatedly raised issues with the GCA and was told he could seek arbitration but warned it could have an impact on future business with the discounter.
That case was also settled out of court.
Carmichael said the reality was that many suppliers were scared to come forward because of the threat of reprisals.
“Mr Clappison was told go and talk to Aldi,” he said.
A series of other MPs joined in the criticism of the GCA’s record.
Henry Tufnell, Labour MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, claimed White was effectively an “apologist or PR machine” for supermarkets.
White told the committee has was “very disappointed” with the claims in the email from the farmer in the Aldi case but defended the track record of the GCA. He said the latest supplier YouGov survey, which came out last week, had shown that the perceived performance of retailers remained high, at 92%.
“I’m absolutely not an apologist,” White said, adding: “I talk to suppliers across the supply chain and I keep everything that suppliers tell me completely confidential until I need the to raise concerns.”
White, whose office was earlier this month moved to sit with Defra, rather than the Department for Business & Trade, also denied the GCA lacked the resources to stand up to the power of the supermarkets. He said he was “confident” he was equipped to take on the likes of Amazon.
The Adjudicator also told the committee he had “not heard” examples of supermarkets putting pressure on suppliers because of the impact of the war in Iran.
He was responding to concerns raised by MPs that supermarkets would pile pressure on the supply chain because of the threat of inflation posed by the conflict.
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