Consumers are the victom

On 2 October 2018, the CBL sent a urgent letter to Minister Carola Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) calling for a vote against extending the bill on commercial practices. The original bill was intended to protect farmers from large buyers. "We can have sympathy for this," says Marc Jansen, director of the CBL. However, immediately after the publication of the bill in Brussels, multinationals started lobbying the European Parliament to get the same protection.

The same protection for multinationals is absurd, Marc Jansen believes. "Major food producers such as Unilever, CocaCola and Heineken are not the weakest parties in the food chain that need protection. Reality is rather the other way round. Large food manufacturers are many times more powerful than even the largest supermarket organisation. The average margin of a food manufacturer is 6 times higher than a supermarkets margin," says Jansen.

If the European Directive is extended, this will lead to increased pressure from large brand manufacturers on supermarkets, making it less easy for supermarkets to counterbalance purchasing negotiations. As a result, the margins of the major brand manufacturers are improving and this can only lead to a higher purchase price for supermarkets and other customers. Moreover, the farmer will not benefit from this. The large manufacturers will not share their better margins with suppliers of agricultural products.

Marc Jansen: "If the European Commission and the Council of Agriculture Ministers yield to the lure of the manufacturers and the European Parliament, food will become more expensive for consumers. This could be several hundred million euros. And that is in addition to the VAT increase on food from 6% to 9%, which means that consumers already have to cough up an extra billion euros for food and drink anyway. This must stop and the only one who can do something about it is Minister Schouten of Agriculture. We therefore urge her to stand up with all her might to the stretching of this bill.

Fair B2B relations

Supermarkets need a reliable supply of products that are of high quality and distinctive. That is why it is very important for supermarkets to treat their suppliers well. And that includes both small and large suppliers. This is a clear objective of the European Supply Chain Initiative for Good Practices, to which the Dutch supermarkets are associated.