Mr. Ian Allen:

If I could add two or three points to build on the point my colleague made on labelling, we have invested heavily and worked hard with our suppliers to ensure the highest standards on quality and traceability over the years.

As Ms Clancy mentioned earlier, we put the name of the farmer on our packs. We are very concerned that the term "Produced in Ireland" is not perceived by some people as being produced in Ireland. We would fully support further developments in labelling and we also support the EU position on substantial transformation. We believe that our customers should be crystal clear where their products come from. We support that 100%.

Deputy Pringle asked about the split between the investment of €290 million. I do not have the specifics but I can say that it is a combination of a number of things. We have large international branded suppliers who often want to push the sales of their products. Given the current environment where consumers are fickle and many changes are occurring in a dynamic market, they would push investment behind promoting those products. There are a number of segments within that €290 million where suppliers would put forward some support. However, the vast majority of it has come from Musgrave investing.

My colleague, Ms Clancy, referred earlier to the example of beef and potatoes. The price for beef that the farmer gets for cattle sold into the stores we supply is based on a price that is published in the Irish Farmers' Journalevery week. On a quarterly basis, we agree with our processor, Kepak, promotions that we would like to put forward in the weeks ahead, irrespective of where the market price would go in that period. We are therefore committed to that promotion whether the price to the farmer rose or fell. Depending on the international influences that Ms Clancy alluded to, we would pay based on that.

We are fully aware of the current plight of potato growers. At the moment, potatoes are making double what they were for farmers this time last year. We fully appreciate the significant input costs that have driven that, as well as the extremely poor yields. While farmers are getting 100% more for their product, which is fully justified, consumers are only paying 50% more. That is driven by a number of factors. Consumers are actively walking away from potatoes and, unfortunately, younger people are not eating them. I agree with Deputy Ó Cuív's comments on education. We can do a lot of things by working in partnership with Bord Bia to market some of these products and getting younger people to consume some of those categories. The potato is a healthy product but it has a bad name, so the industry could do a lot of work to promote the benefits of such products.

Deputy Ó Cuív also asked about consumer research. We talk to our consumers regularly and ask them lots of questions. We can thereby gain an insight into their minds and how they are coping in the current environment. Different things matter to different segments of the population. A number of consumers have been less impacted by the current environment than others, so different things impact on them than on others. Undoubtedly price and value are top of the agenda. Consumers are concerned not so much by Irish products any more, but by things that are produced in the local community.

The horsemeat scandal and the lack of trust in the "Produced in Ireland" label impact on all of that which is as worrying for us as it is for consumers. Consumers want quality and also want to be able to control waste. They want to buy little and often in order to manage their weekly spend and ensure that they can shop around and get the best value. Value consists of price but it is also about promotion, quality, pack sizes and pack format. It is also about the service consumers get in their local shop, which is very important. Many consumers are under a lot of pressure, so they want to get in and out fast. All those factors play into the consumer psyche today, but for some segments price is at the top of the agenda. A mixture of all those factors has to be considered.