Clive Beddall
New food and farming minister Lord Whitty greeted with traditional industry caution when he was appointed to Margaret Beckett's DEFRA team three months ago is to be bombarded with invitations to meet the food chain this autumn.
Sector leaders, fearful the "sympathetic, understanding approach" personified by Nick Brown when he headed MAFF, had been dumped in favour of a "wider environmentalist approach" from the DEFRA team, are revising their views.
Industry chiefs were this week hailing Lord Whitty as "an understanding guy, with a real feel for the importance of the food chain".
One senior grocery figure, who "did not feel it was appropriate" to be named in print, told The Grocer: "We're warming to the man. Given that food' was not originally in the title of the new ministry, and there was a widely held belief that the chain would be sidelined by DEFRA's many other responsibilities, we have been pleasantly surprised.
"We thought it would be hard to find an understanding minister in Whitehall when Nick Brown moved on, but we were wrong. Lord Whitty is a shrewd, tough campaigner with a rapid grasp of the issues. He's not the sort to fall for rip-off type posturing by spin doctors."
His words were echoed by other industry figures, several suggesting the minister was "the ideal man to lead the chain out of the crisis provoked by foot and mouth".
But scepticism came from several leading food exporters who doubted the sincerity of reports from Whitehall (The Grocer, last week, p8) that Tony Blair is giving top priority to a campaign to rebuild consumer confidence.
As one put it: "Blair's given £3m worth of extra cash to Food from Britain. He needs to put more money where his mouth is and cough up another £3m. We have a serious international market rebuilding job on our hands."
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