As the OFT ended its consultation with industry over the effectiveness of the Supermarket Code of Practice, The Grocer has discovered that suppliers have been sent letters demanding a £10,000 fee to secure a place on an approved vendor list'.
However, the demands are not coming from a retailer but from the UK's biggest foodservice company, Compass Group.
In its letter, Compass said the list represented part of a "strategy of rationalisation". It justified the fee on the grounds of the "growing administrative burden" of product catalogue costs, promotional activity, account management fees and other costs.
News of the demands being made by Compass will no doubt be used as evidence by those who believe the Code of Practice, which currently only applies to the top four supermarkets, should have a broader remit.
However, in submissions to the OFT on the effectiveness of the code a year after its launch, suppliers admitted the document had proved largely ineffectual in tackling the worst abuses of supermarket power.
The Food and Drink Federation said: "We don't believe the code has resulted in any major change in the behaviour of retailers affected by it."
And Provision Trade Federation director general Clare Cheney said "gross abuses" of power persisted. "If the code was intended to address the concerns which led the OFT to produce it in the first place, it has not worked."
Suppliers said a particular bone of contention was the "routine" practice of retailers' deducting payments at short notice, putting the onus on suppliers to claim the money back a practice that could takes weeks or months.
The OFT confirmed it had received just two official complaints over a breach of the code one from Express Dairies, which fell outside the code's remit, and another from a supplier that wished to remain anonymous.
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However, the demands are not coming from a retailer but from the UK's biggest foodservice company, Compass Group.
In its letter, Compass said the list represented part of a "strategy of rationalisation". It justified the fee on the grounds of the "growing administrative burden" of product catalogue costs, promotional activity, account management fees and other costs.
News of the demands being made by Compass will no doubt be used as evidence by those who believe the Code of Practice, which currently only applies to the top four supermarkets, should have a broader remit.
However, in submissions to the OFT on the effectiveness of the code a year after its launch, suppliers admitted the document had proved largely ineffectual in tackling the worst abuses of supermarket power.
The Food and Drink Federation said: "We don't believe the code has resulted in any major change in the behaviour of retailers affected by it."
And Provision Trade Federation director general Clare Cheney said "gross abuses" of power persisted. "If the code was intended to address the concerns which led the OFT to produce it in the first place, it has not worked."
Suppliers said a particular bone of contention was the "routine" practice of retailers' deducting payments at short notice, putting the onus on suppliers to claim the money back a practice that could takes weeks or months.
The OFT confirmed it had received just two official complaints over a breach of the code one from Express Dairies, which fell outside the code's remit, and another from a supplier that wished to remain anonymous.
{{NEWS }}
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