IGD's revelation that consumers still have an exaggerated view of the size of the profits made in food and grocery is a shocking indictment of the industry's PR machinery. Listening to speeches during the election campaign and reading some of the dafter headlines suggested to me that the trade had done a pretty poor job on the public relations front since largely being cleared of profiteering by the Competition Commission. Thus, IGD's Consumer Watch team is right to suggest that there is a need for co-ordinated efforts across the chain to make consumer friendly' information available on how food is produced, costs are incorporated and how profits are made and used to offer more benefits to consumers. All major food chain groups need to get on with a co-ordination project as soon as possible. For, sadly, the trade lacks a high profile corporate champion to go public and put the other side of the story in the face of the familiar media attacks. However, it's not only consumers who must be targeted. The education campaign should begin in Whitehall among the loony honourable members who consistently peddle ridiculous soundbites about the food business. And it should be extended across the media. After all, we're promised yet another tv series at the end of the summer which will "lift the lid" on the food industry. And currently there's one tabloid, with a seriously inadequate headline lexicon, which regularly interchanges the words food' and cancer' on its front page. Thus, you have an idea of the size of the challenge facing everyone in the chain. But the most worrying aspect of IGD's survey is that there has been little change in consumer perceptions of the food industry since 1999, a time when the industry was under the Competition Commission's spotlight. There's been a lot of effort to build closer co-operation between food and farming organisations. But, on this issue, the unity talks must now extend into firm action. Clive Beddall, Editor {{OPINION }}