Groceries Code Adjudicator comes under review

The government is considering scrapping the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) and is interested in potentially transferring its functions to the CMA to improve efficiency, stated recent reports.

The government last week has launched a consultation on how effective the Groceries Code Adjudicator has been and whether it should be replaced.

The GCA was established in 2013 to monitor fair practice in the food supply chain between retailers and suppliers. Currently, 14 retailers are signed up to the groceries supply code of practice.

This will be the third statutory review of the GCA and covers the period between 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2022. The consultation is due to close on 11 October 2022.

The adjudicator is overseen by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) and the government is interested in potentially transferring its functions to the CMA to improve efficiency.

Minister for small business, consumers and labour markets Jane Hunt launched the consultation and aims to establish how well the body has performed its statutory obligations.

“The first review considered whether the GCA’s functions should be transferred to another public body or be abolished and found no evidence that transferring the GCA’s functions would increase the effectiveness of public functions or accountability to Ministers,” Hunt said.

“In light of the need to ensure efficiency of public bodies, we would like to consider those questions again in the current review.

Reacting to the news, NFU chief food business adviser Amy Fry said that the Groceries Code Adjudicator is incredibly valuable to the food supply chain- holding retailers to account and allowing farmers and growers to highlight breaches of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice without fear of repercussion.

“The NFU is aware of the statutory review of the GCA and will be responding in due course,” Fry said.

This comes as a YouGov survey in June found relations between retailers and suppliers were worsening for the first time under the adjudicator, because of the wave of cost price increase requests from suppliers.