Supermarkets urged to pass on saving to shoppers

4:50pm Monday 25th August 2008

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SUPERMARKETS are being urged to cut food prices following a 50 per cent drop in the cost of cereal crops.

Farmer Tony Garnett, who now earns £105 for a ton of wheat instead of £200, said customers should be the ones to benefit - not producers and shops.

“When the cereal price drops they don’t seem to drop their prices in the supermarket,” he said.

“But cereals are the backbone and the benchmark for everything.”

Last summer traders paid Mr Garnett about £200 for a ton of wheat.

But since then the price has almost halved.

The cost of cereal crops was high last year because of a shortage caused by bad weather.

That meant farmers and traders could charge more for grain such as wheat.

At the time supermarkets put up their food prices to compensate.

But Mr Garnett said those prices did not seem to have come down again with this year’s lower costs. “It should really be reciprocated,” he said.

“The supermarkets will say they bought in advance, so their prices have to stay the same for a while.

“But that wasn’t the case when prices went up.

“They’ll say fuel is more expensive, but it is for all of us.”

Farmers such as Mr Garnett do not know which producers and supermarkets their crops go to.

Cereal crops are about 10% of his Allostock-based business, which is mainly dairy-based.

Mr Garnett said some farmers would think twice about growing cereals if the value of them continued to decrease.