The Live Wire



Press Release

FSB backs OFT referral of grocery market to Competition Commission

Tuesday 9 May 2006

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) today supported the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) decision to refer the grocery sector to the Competition Commission for review.

The OFT has asked the Competition Commission to look in particular at the supermarket’s land banks, the impact the planning system has on competition in the sector, the treatment of suppliers and the use of below-cost pricing (where an item is sold at below the production cost in order to entice shoppers to the supermarket to do all their shopping there).

The Competition Commission has two years to come to its conclusions but the FSB is pushing for a speedy and thorough review. As this is the third review in seven years the FSB believes it is important that the review is successful this time. Between 2000 and 2004 there were 7,337 independent retailers that went out of business, so a further two years may be too late for some small retailers.

Clive Davenport, FSB National Trade and Industry Chairman, said:

“We welcome the move by the OFT to look further into the grocery sector. However, we are disappointed that the remit of the inquiry will not cover other vital issues such as car park costs for high street stores versus free parking for supermarkets and the toothless operation of the Supermarket Code of Practice.

“Below-cost selling and pressure on suppliers are important matters to be covered by the inquiry and both hit small firms hard. All around the country we can see the evidence of this in the number of empty high street stores.

“The fact that over 1,200 responses were received by the OFT shows the strength of feeling on this issue. Large and small retailers and their suppliers can co-exist in future to the benefit of consumers and we will be making a full submission to the Competition Commission to help achieve this.”



Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.

Federation of Small Businesses

Federation of Small Businesses

More from Dods

© Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd