FG: Consumers and farmers ‘ripped off’

CONSUMERS and farmers are being ripped off with a mark-up of more than 200% on basic foodstuffs between the farm gate and the supermarket shelf, Fine Gael claimed yesterday.

The party’s shopping basket, containing beef, milk, eggs and a range of vegetables shows that the farmer gets €13.07, while the consumer is paying around €31.31 — a profit of almost 140%.

The highest mark-up was on cauliflower, with farmers getting a mere 50c for the vegetable that retails at about €1.55 a head, a mark-up of 210%.