The UK Competition Commission's final report reeased on 30th April says that suppliers directly in contact with the supermarkets are transferring excessive risks and unexpected costs further up the supply chain.

Asda chief executive Andy Bond will today pledge to source an additional £30m worth of fresh produce from African farmers over the next five years.

Planet Retail 6 May 2008

According to reports in the British press, Asda has dropped its opposition to overseas suppliers being included in a new code of conduct designed to protect against unfair terms imposed by UK grocery chains.

The UK's biggest supermarket first announced its intention to put carbon counts on up to 70,000 products some 15 months ago. They will start to roll this out across Tesco own brand products very shortly.

The aviation and produce industries have slammed the Soil Association's proposals to reduce the volume of organic fresh produce airfreighted to the UK, accusing the certification body of focusing on a purely "ideological" debate, rather than looking at the facts.

Kenya horticulture sector, the largest exporter of cut flowers to Europe, earned Sh70.3 billion in 2007 up 63 per cent from the previous year, the Central Bank said on Tuesday.

The Chilled Food Association has said carbon-footprint labelling of products is misleading and that any footprint labelling should apply to businesses, not the products they put out.

Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified - and is damaging the planet in the process

Source: thisismoney.co.uk 

The Government will today dismiss fears over 'food miles' and urge supermarkets to stock more produce flown in from Africa.

The strengthened Supermarkets Code of Practice proposed by the Competition Commission on 15th February could prohibit a number of practices considered by the watchdog to be detrimental to consumers.

Measures include banning retrospective changes to agreed terms of supply, as well as requiring retailers to make further improvements to their dealings with suppliers through the appointment of an in-house code compliance officer, keeping better records of contracts with suppliers and automatic notification to suppliers of contractual terms and their right to complain and seek arbitration of disputes.