Price fixing on sugar at Tesco and Asda?

moonrakerz

andrewmp wrote: »

Supermarkets need to buy milk. If the farmers insisted on a "fair" price then the supermarkets would have to pay it wouldn't they?

Just which planet are you living on ?

mambury

andrewmp wrote: »

Supermarkets need to buy milk. If the farmers insisted on a "fair" price then the supermarkets would have to pay it wouldn't they?

Are you serious???? Can I sugest that you do a little research on where your food comes from. I suspect that if you are that naive when it somes to milk then you will be shocked and very surprised how and where the rest of your supermarket shop comes from.

andrewmp

Jane_Blackford wrote: »

They would just buy from overseas or other farmers who were desperate. No-one else can buy the milk due to the stranglehold the supermarkets have on the market.

So how would the overseas dairy farmers afford to sell it at such a low price?

andrewmp

mambury wrote: »

Are you serious???? Can I sugest that you do a little research on where your food comes from. I suspect that if you are that naive when it somes to milk then you will be shocked and very surprised how and where the rest of your supermarket shop comes from.

So is the UK dairy farming market unsustainable? It sounds like it from the comments so far.

Viper_7

Yes, the pound is still strong. It's cheaper to import.

meg72

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

Poundland have 1.5 kg bags of sugar for £1.This works out at 67p per Kg, much cheaper than the supermarkets.

Poundland also sell milk. I now only buy my sugar and milk from there, much cheaper than Asda

jd87

Sorry if this is naive but I'm only talking hypothetically here. Isn't there some kind of body that represents farmers, so farmers could all agree on the price they want for their milk, and then the supermarkets will have to pay it? And if not, why not?

Surely the supermarkets couldn't go abroad, even if transportation costs were low enough to make it worthwhile, I don't see how they could keep fresh chilled milk fresh for long enough to survive the journey.

mambury

jd87 wrote: »

Sorry if this is naive but I'm only talking hypothetically here. Isn't there some kind of body that represents farmers, so farmers could all agree on the price they want for their milk, and then the supermarkets will have to pay it? And if not, why not?

Surely the supermarkets couldn't go abroad, even if transportation costs were low enough to make it worthwhile, I don't see how they could keep fresh chilled milk fresh for long enough to survive the journey.

there used to be the milk marketing board who set a fair wholesale price for milk however this was done away with decades ago. Since then the 'free market economy' has meant that, with the rise of supermarkets, the wholesale price has been pushed further and further down to the benefit of the retailers. British dairy farmers cannot compete with overseas prices, where welfare is not such a high standard as here in the uk. If the dairy farmers try to push the supermarkets, they are bullied into accepting lower and lower prices as they know the supermarkets not only will go overseas, they hold the majority of the market.

It is a bit of a damned if they do and damned if they don't.
A lot of dairy farmers in my area have moved from dairy to beef production as that give a slightly higher return, but they still have to compete with south american imports.

mambury

and when it comes to sugar, have you checked where it comes from? Do the worker have a fair wage, is the processing of the sugar ecologically sound?

The bleaching alone of the sugar to make it white is very damaging to the environment and strips the sugar itself of all that tastes good.

moonrakerz

jd87 wrote: »

Sorry if this is naive but I'm only talking hypothetically here. Isn't there some kind of body that represents farmers, so farmers could all agree on the price they want for their milk, and then the supermarkets will have to pay it? And if not, why not?

Surely the supermarkets couldn't go abroad, even if transportation costs were low enough to make it worthwhile, I don't see how they could keep fresh chilled milk fresh for long enough to survive the journey.

Supermarkets already import milk !
Last year it was reported by the BBC that the UK was importing a million litres of fresh milk a day from Holland & Belgium alone !
They will buy it where ever it is cheapest, if that is Poland, Bulgaria or North Korea, they DO NOT CARE. If they can get it to their store cheaper than they can get it from farmer Jones down the road - they will.
Fresh milk keeps better than fresh fruit/veg, that comes from all over the globe.

When all the UK milk producers have been driven out of business and living standards/costs in Poland, Bulgaria or North Korea have risen dramatically - so will the price of YOUR milk.