Wales’ new minister for rural resilience and sustainability is to create a retail round table with the country’s supermarkets, as part of a wider push to drive new opportunities for local producers and bolster food security.
Plaid Cymru MS Llyr Gruffydd this week told The Grocer the forum would be set up “as soon as possible” to discuss how Welsh food and drink could be better promoted across the supermarket sector.
The party’s election manifesto discussed the creation of official ‘Made in Wales’ branding and pledged to work with retailers to carve out more dedicated Welsh produce fixtures.
“We know supermarkets stocking Welsh meat, dairy and other produce drives footfall and store loyalty,” Gruffydd said. “So, in this increasingly volatile world, with global supply chains under stress, it’s as good a time as any to bring everyone to the table.”
Welsh food businesses have a “great story to tell, so there’s a job of work to do to strengthen that”, he added.
Welsh Retail Consortium head Sara Jones said the sector would “welcome the opportunity to engage constructively” with the Plaid administration, adding supermarkets “share the ambition of helping customers access high-quality Welsh food”.
However, she cautioned “any discussions should recognise the work already being done by retailers, as well as the commercial and practical factors involved in bringing products to shelves”.
The previous Labour Welsh government’s most recent Major Retailer Audit Report identified more than 2,500 Welsh food and drink products on sale across the country’s major supermarkets.
Meat, fish and poultry had experienced the fastest distribution growth in recent years, with dairy and eggs highlighted among the most successful categories.
National buyers for the major retailers, wholesale and hospitality sectors will be attending the Welsh government’s Business Lounge at this year’s Royal Welsh Show next month, “visiting our showcase of more than 1,000 Welsh products. We look forward to welcoming them”, added a Welsh government spokesperson.
Just over a month after securing the largest share of seats in the Senedd, the new Plaiud government would also create an “implementation group” for a Welsh national food strategy, Gruffydd said.
“That would be led then by a strong independent chair and it will be focused around improving access to affordable, healthy, nutritious food,” he added, with an emphasis on local sourcing.
And work was underway on boosting the public procurement of Welsh food and drink – given Plaid’s manifesto aim of increasing the amount sourced from Wales by the public sector from its current level of 23% to at least 50% by 2030.
“There’s a piece around improving [food business] infrastructure, so there’s an investment role to play,” Gruffydd said. “The kind of economy we want to see is one that is more resilient, because it grows local, it processes local, and it procures local.”
Improvements would be sought by working in partnership with public procurers, rather than mandating them. But following revelations this year that some councils sourced the majority of their school chicken from as far away as China or Thailand, Gruffydd admitted he wanted to “stop” the practice.
His comments come a week after the Welsh government launched an independent review to examine the bureaucratic burden on Welsh farm businesses.
“When we came into government, we said farmers would have a minister on their side,” Gruffydd said. “This is us putting words into action. We understand that a farmer’s priority is farming. regulation is a necessary part of maintaining our world-leading standards, but requirements need to be proportionate and should not get in the way of sustainable food production and land management.”
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