Mr. Damian McDonald:

The point is that certainly one of the biggest issue in the erosion of value right along the chain is the move towards private branded labels owned by the supermarkets themselves. What that allows them to do is have their own brand. We have examples of what we refer to as “fake farms”. However, take any brand, for example. If you go into a shop you will see Egan’s potatoes. However, there is no Egan’s potatoes. The fact is that the supermarket is in a position to ask all potato suppliers to compete against each other to provide the cheapest potato to go in that bag from one week to the next. Rather than the actual person supplying the potatoes building up a brand value, the brand value is being taken by the supermarket. We cannot end up in a scenario where supermarkets are filled only by their own brand products. This is not just an Irish problem; it is a global strategy by retailers to try to take more of the chain for themselves. If there is an Egan’s potatoes, it should be Egans that is putting the potatoes into the bag, and the consumer believes that is what is happening. I am just using that as an example. There are many more examples of that. There are others that are clearer that they are brands owned by supermarkets, going back to the original yellow pack where this whole thing started. The point we are trying to make, and I agree it is not the simple thing to do, is that there should be some requirement or a minimum below which retailers cannot go in terms of pushing out all of the brands. Many of the products on shelves that are branded by the supermarket sit alongside the supplier’s own branded product, which may be selling at a higher price. To remain viable, the supplier has no option other than to supply the product to fill the own-brand order as well. It is an issue. It is not easy to solve it, but we want to flag it clearly here that this where we are going if we do not do something about it.