Last year the major food retailers caused uproar among farmers and farming organisation for selling fruit and vegetables for just a few cents in the weeks prior to Christmas.

Supermarket multiples Tesco and the Musgrave group (representatives of Super Valu and Centra) along with German discounter Lidl recently met with Minister of State for Horticulture Tom Hayes and agreed not to repeat last year’s below cost sellng.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine has welcomed the news and called for major supermarket chains were to make a similar promise.

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The committee also wants the pledge to extended to all home produced fresh products, including poultry.

Chairman of the Committee Andrew Doyle TD says: “The selling of cut-price vegetables before Christmas last year highlighted many of the inequities in the food supply chain. As a Committee, we are acutely aware of the pricing pressures that primary producers are regularly subjected to, having published a comprehensive report on the matter in October 2013. The pledge by Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and the Musgrave Group to avoid below cost selling of fruit and vegetables this Christmas is therefore to be warmly welcomed.

“The Committee, bearing in mind the pressures on farm families across the country, would welcome a further undertaking for the pledge to cover all home produced fresh products including poultry. There would be no winners, should any retailer take a unilateral decision to run a similar promotional campaign to last Christmas. Consequently, the Committee calls on the remaining supermarket chains to promise not to run such a campaign in the coming weeks.”