Reeves summons supermarket bosses again after snub
Rachel Reeves has summoned supermarket bosses for a Downing Street meeting on Wednesday after being snubbed last week.
The new meeting will be attended by executives at Sainsbury’s and Tesco but bosses at Asda, Aldi and John Lewis will miss out, supposedly due to diary clashes.
The Chancellor hastily invited grocery executives to a meeting over food and fuel prices last week, but the invite was interpreted by many bosses as an opportunity to reprimand grocers over “profiteering” from the Iran crisis.
Only Morrisons boss, Rami Batieh, was due to attend the initial meeting, which was cancelled to avoid proceeding with “second-tier” turnout.
The new rendezvous will be attended by the bosses of Sainsbury’s and Tesco, while Aldi, Asda and John Lewis have declined due to diary commitments and Marks & Spencer and Lidl are yet to RSVP.
Government should help grocers out, says BRC
The initial meeting was set up to allow grocery executives to defend themselves against claims of excessive pricing amid the Iran shipping crisis, according to the Times.
Retailers plan to use the rescheduled meeting to push back against these claims.
One source told the Times: “We want to talk constructively about Iran and domestic policy. The government can’t fix Iran, but it can fix the domestic stuff.”
Despite suggestions that supermarkets may be hiking prices under the cover of the Iran war, recent data showed shop price inflation increased only marginally this month.
The rate of shop price growth climbed by one decimal point to 1.2 per cent in the year to March, compared to the year to February, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Helen Dickinson, the BRCs chief executive, is calling on government to ease the burden on grocers: “While retailers will work with their suppliers to mitigate the impact on prices as far as possible, inflation will rise, although there are no indications it will reach the peaks of the last spike in April 2023.
“[The] government needs to look at all the costs that could exacerbate these price rises.”
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Asda boss: Government should ‘start doing stuff’
Reeves faced a similarly spiky response earlier this month when she summoned petrol retailers to discuss claims of “price gouging” amid rising fuel prices.
The trade body representing petrol retailers called off the meeting last minute – condemning the Chancellor’s “inflammatory” language – before it was later rescheduled.
Asda boss Allan Leighton said last week the government should “start doing stuff” to help farmers and cut the price of fuel.
The boss of the UK’s third largest supermarket – which operates more than 300 petrol stations – dismissed Labour’s concerns over fuel profiteering as “nonsense”.
Leighton said: “[The] government has a big role to play and it stands there pointing fingers at everybody. It’s total camouflage.”
The named supermarkets have been contacted for comment.