The Co-operative Food has announced a £1.5billion, three-year commitment to “support and celebrate” British food and farmers.

The commitment comes as new consumer research shows that 90% of shoppers want supermarkets to sell more food from British farms and 81% of farmers believe retailers should support UK farming by only selling British meat and poultry.

Commitment

Launching its new UK sourcing report, Born and Bred,  Co-operative Food re-enforced its commitment to its farming groups, which were launched last year in order to back British farmers and agriculture.

Farming groups like the National Farming Union enable the retailer to cement relationships with producers and provide shoppers with a more consistent and transparent supply chain.

The retailer has pledged to source British products over and above alternatives for own brand meat, poultry, produce and dairy products. It will also adopt a transparent approach to its marketing of UK food and will report back annually on its progress.

George Chichester of Strutt & Parker’s Farming Department and based in the Newbury office says: “Strutt & Parker warmly welcomes the Co-op’s initiative. British farms operate amongst the highest standards in the world, so the quality of food and standards of animal welfare as well as environmental protection are second to none.

"Thus consumers can be confident that when buying top quality food from the Britain there will be a great reduction in food miles and they are also supporting the UK economy.”

NFU Support

NFU President, Meurig Raymond says that the report highlights the importance of British produce to consumers and further reinforces the growing role British produce plays in major retailers delivering a product that consumers want and trust.

He welcomed a major retailer setting out its commitments to UK produce in a transparent and reviewable fashion, in particular via an open and clear report on their commitments to British agriculture through the publication of an annual report.

The Born and Bred report will allow consumers and farmers to monitor The Co-operative’s performance against its sourcing commitments on an annual basis. 

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss says that this commitment is a vote of confidence for the UK food and drink industry. 

She is now encouraging all supermarkets to carefully consider the labelling on their products so their customers know exactly where their food comes from.

Research

Research shows that 73% of consumers have more confidence in British sourced food and 86% feel that food is more traceable when produced on British farms.

More than eight out of ten (84%) say that buying British sourced food is important to them with one in three saying it is very important. The study also shows that 47% see the origin of food as the second most important label information after the use or sell by date (66%).