Two food-related stories in the Irish Examiner caught my eye this week. The first on Monday was saying that shoppers were winning from the all-out grocery price war.

The second on Tuesday was the story broken by Cork’s 96fm of a market trader re-selling Lidl produce at an inflated price in the English Market.

The first story says that grocery inflation was low at 1.5% in the previous 12 weeks; low but still an increase in supermarket food prices. However, the basic items such as milk and vegetables had decreased in price by 10% in less than a year.

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This raised two alarms with me. On a basic level I knew as a farmer that input costs were rising which logically to me would mean the ultimate selling price needs to increase in order to make a living.

Secondly, it is only the best products that make it onto supermarket shelves. These are the straight carrots, round apples and the prime examples of what we as farmers produce. These are the products facing increased specifications and requirements.

These are the products Origin Green and others rightly boast to the world that Irish farmers can supply. These are the products that are falling in price - yes, falling!

Processed foods

So what is increasing? Correct me if I’m wrong but that would be processed foods, made with perfectly good farm produce that doesn’t meet the beauty pageant specifications. The type of produce for which I would be paid a little less.

The English Market trader story only reinforces the mess. Michael Herlihy defended himself by saying he couldn’t get the type of uniform vegetables from the wholesalers that he sourced in the discount supermarket. In other words, the best looking specimens ended up in supermarkets and his restaurateur customers were prepared to pay more to get what they wanted.

For customers, they need to realise that they are not the winners if the best looking food is being used as a lure to make retail profits elsewhere.

Beef grid

For farmers, we need to know if the real processor and retail profits are being made on the out of spec produce. The infamous beef grid was supposedly introduced to encourage the production of quality cattle.

Lately this has joined what I see as a way to push more of our food into manufacturing spec at a reduced price to make higher profits for others.

Trust has been damaged for shoppers and farmers, it’ll take a while to heal.

I thanked the 96fm opinion line for allowing me a rant on Tuesday. I do likewise now with the Irish Farmers Journal. Apologies to listeners and readers.