Henry Dimbleby highlights the UK’s “weird supermarket culture” as a “market failure” and identifies a lack of government strategy (Food tsar blames shortages on UK’s ‘weird supermarket culture’, 4 March). For 30 years, successive governments have allowed the main multiple food retailers to develop an almost monopsonistic marketplace. That has been the strategy, the reason being there is no stronger way to control inflation than in a monopsony. But you can’t have excessively cheap food if you want a continuous supply of high-quality food from a responsibly farmed countryside.
It is a tough decision that the government, consumers and shareholders need to face up to.
Antony Adorian
Billingshurst, West Sussex
