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%.

A kilo of carrots is marked up from the 58c paid to the farmer to about €1.65 paid by shoppers.

A dozen eggs is costing €3.55 in supermarkets — almost 200% more than the €1.20 paid to the farmer.

Fine Gael said products requiring little or no processing are being marked up by 140% on average.

The party’s survey found Superquinn had the highest overall mark-up of 151% on the whole basket of goods; Dunnes had the next highest overall mark-up at 137%, while Tesco had the lowest at 130%.

The party’s spokesman on agriculture and food, Denis Naughten, said shoppers needed to know they are not getting a better deal and farmers deserved to know why they are not getting a fair price.

Last year, Fine Gael found the mark-up on basic foodstuffs was 162%. The average basket of groceries was €22.97 in supermarkets, with farmers getting just €8.77.

The highest mark-up then was on cabbage, with farmers getting 40c for a vegetable retailing at €1.39 — a 247% difference.

Mr Naughten said the party was concerned that consumers were unaware of the huge mark-ups.

Irish Farmers’ Association president Padraig Walshe said he was not surprised by the findings but would like to see some concrete suggestions on how farmers could get a fair price for produce.

The Consumers’ Association of Ireland said Fine Gael had not made any suggestion in its programme for Government on how consumers and farmers could get a fair deal.

Association Michael Kilcoyne said the party had produced surveys highlighting the issue, but had not got a single proposal on what to do about it.

However, Retail Ireland, the trade body representing supermarkets, said Fine Gael’s statement on retail profits was grossly misleading. Director Torlach Denihan said Mr Naughten ignored the fact that retailers did not purchase these products directly from individual farmers.

Mr Denihan said Mr Naughten also seemed to be unaware that many prices paid to the farmer were set by EU or world markets.

“If the prices paid to farmers here were too low, the produce would all be exported.”