Ms Christine Tacon:

In the order that the Competition and Markets Authority, CMA, oversees, it states that all agreements must be in writing and under the code and that any variations to agreements must be done with reasonable notice. That is covered but there is nothing that specifies it exactly. To be honest, there was a request to the CMA about what was going to be in a supply agreement. It got copies of everyone's supply agreements, went through them and came out with a very inconclusive paper which even discussed what the font size should be. I have often asked farmers to please be careful what they wish for. There are years of dreadful weather and if farmers have agreed to a certain price or volume and they cannot deliver that, they will have to import or find other ways to fulfil the contract. They must be careful about getting things defined in a contract.