The UK’s supermarkets must be laughing all the way to the bank this week, as another report fails to establish a link between their buying power and pressure on grower returns.

Which particular section of the market is it then that decides the cost price that gets paid out? Who is it that sets the specifications that reduce returns to a bare minimum by adding to the producer’s cost burden? And more to the point recently, is it not the supermarkets that make the decision to de-list suppliers willy-nilly in the cause of rationalisation? You could say that reduces returns to growers.

But, the real point of all this has been ignored - especially when fruit and vegetables come into the equation. Most fresh produce is sold too cheaply by the leading supermarkets.

If they want to please their shareholders, why not do it by adding a few pence onto the fresh products they sell to boost profits instead of taking millions out of the pockets of growers and suppliers?

Prices for some items are below their levels of 15 years ago; how does that stack up? It stacks up for the supermarkets because they use other lines to bolster their own coffers. Just look at the differentials of some of the products that aren’t monitored by shopping basket researchers. It isn’t hard to work out.

Intelligent commerce it may be, but producers in commoditised categories are working just as hard to put product on the shelves as their counterparts in garlic, sweetcorn or mangoes.

I am not suggesting there is a need to drop the prices of the money-spinning lines, but it doesn’t have to be done at the expense of suppliers of loss-leaders.

There is a way of ensuring that all growers and suppliers get a fair return, but it is not supermarket-friendly.