WyeCycle have added their support to the national 'Stop the Safeway Takeover' campaign, amid growing concerns about the concentration of market share in food retailing.

The Competition Commission is currently considering whether to allow Tesco, Asda/Walmart, Sainsbury or Morrisons to buy Safeway. If any of these deals goes ahead, then just 4 companies will control 75% of food retailing.

Richard Boden, Director of WyeCycle, says, "The battle for Safeway is finally waking people up to the fact that the power of the supermarkets lies at the heart of the problems facing local communities, UK agriculture and the global environment. Destruction of high streets, bankruptcy of family farms, pollution and congestion from increasing 'food miles', and a packaging waste mountain, are all direct results of the unchecked concentration of market share in food retailing."

The national campaign to stop the Safeway takeover is being organised by Friends of the Earth, Grassroots Action on Food and Farming, and the Small and Family Farms Alliance. The public are being asked to write to their MP, asking him/her to urge the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to stop any merger with another major supermarket.

As Richard Boden concludes, "The supermarkets have had it all their way for too long. The time has come for Government to introduce legislation to drastically reverse the concentration of market share, to the benefit of farmers, consumers and the environment."

The root cause of the many concerns expressed about 'supermarkets' is their power in the marketplace, quantified as a percentage share of the market. It is only logical, therefore, that what is and what isn't a supermarket must be defined by reference to a company's market share. WyeCycle would define a supermarket as 'any company responsible for more than 1% of UK food retailing'.

Using this definition, it is possible to get over the mental block affecting decision makers that "the public like shopping at supermarkets". The public do want to do all their weekly shopping under one roof, with a wide range of produce and an adjacent car park. They do not demand that such a shop is owned by a company responsible for more than 1% of UK food retailing.

Once it is accepted that the supermarket can be disinvented without the general public (ie the voter) being inconvenienced, there are two possible causes of action for Government. Most simply, legislation could be passed stating that no single business can be responsible for more than 1% of UK food retailing. Alternatively, a range of measures could be introduced with the openly stated aim of achieving the 1% figure.

SUCH MEASURES WOULD INCLUDE
  A tax on supermarket car parking spaces, set at such a level as to be revenue neutral with the tax raised being used to fund a 95% rate rebate for local independent food retailers.
  No approvals for new supermarkets or the expansion of present ones, such as extra floor space, longer opening hours, etc.
  Honest labelling, eg. 'produced abroad, under conditions which would be illegal in the UK'
  A range of legislation on issues which would favour the local over the global; deposits on bottles, charging levels to discriminate in favour of small abattoirs, increases in vehicle excise duty to add to the cost of transporting food, and all government institutions -- schools, hospitals, prisons etc -- to have a mandatory 'local food first' policy, etc.

In addition to setting out its own views, WyeCycle provided a number of papers by researchers, academics and analysts addressing the same or similar issues.