{"id":94419,"date":"2026-07-30T08:07:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=94419"},"modified":"2026-07-30T08:07:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:07:38","slug":"the-stupidity-of-supermarket-bosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/07\/30\/the-stupidity-of-supermarket-bosses\/","title":{"rendered":"The stupidity of supermarket bosses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Telegraph has reported this morning<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

Wildfires and extreme weather are putting Britain\u2019s food supplies at risk, the bosses of Britain\u2019s biggest supermarkets have warned.<\/p>\n

The chief executives of Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury\u2019s, Aldi and the Co-op have written to the Prime Minister calling for urgent action to protect food security and lessen Britain\u2019s dependence on imports.<\/p>\n

Supermarket bosses are calling for Andy Burnham to set legally binding targets to increase the proportion of fruit and vegetables grown in Britain by 2040.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The suggestion is absurd. As the Guardian notes this morning in a newsletter:<\/p>\n

Half of England is\u00a0officially in drought<\/a>, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Try growing fruit and veg in the UK without adequate water supplied and see how you get on, I suggest.<\/p>\n

It would appear that you now need to be ignorant about how your supply chains work to be a boss of a supermarket.<\/p>\n

There was just one reasonable demand these bosses could have made. It is the legacy of Theresa May (and she has few other good ones) that the UK has a legal commitment to net zero by 2050. It is only by achieving that goal, which has been internationally endorsed at COP summits, that the problem that we face with food supplies might be solved. If supermarket bosses claim they do not know that, then they are, in my opinion, either ignorant, willfully stupid, or politically manipulative in pursuit of profits.<\/p>\n

It's time these fools stopped feeding lines to the Telegraph with its hatred of all things to do with climate change and did instead smell the coffee and realise that unless we tackle the root causes of the problem we have - which are to be found in the carbon waste in many of the products that they sell - they will not have a business left by 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Telegraph has reported this morning that: Wildfires and extreme weather are putting Britain\u2019s food supplies at risk, the bosses of Britain\u2019s biggest supermarkets have
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