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d pricing was also a \u201ccore concern\u201d for most shoppers, IGD\u2019s chief executive, Joanne Denney-Finch (left) told Chief-Exec.com yesterday.<\/p>\nCurrency fluctuation is the \u201cnumber one concern\u201d of many senior grocery industry representatives \u2013 not Brexit \u2013 according to a survey conducted by IGD, the food and grocery research and training charity.<\/p>\n
Representing 1,000 corporations and their subsidiaries across the globe, IGD surveyed 400 delegates at a recent event and found that 47 per cent put the falling pound at the top of their list of concerns. Brexit came in second at only 18 per cent.<\/p>\n
Food pricing was also a \u201ccore concern\u201d for most shoppers, IGD\u2019s chief executive, Joanne Denney-Finch (left) told Chief-Exec.com yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrency depreciation is the most immediate manifestation of Brexit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 Our research suggests that consumers plan to play it safe in 2017. From this, it is reasonable to believe that price will be a central grocery issue for some time to come, which could lead to pressure on business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some prices have already started to rise \u2013 and others have been flagged \u2013 as the pound continues to fall. At the time of publishing, \u00a31was worth $1.23 and \u20ac1.11. On June 23, the day of the referendum, the pound was worth $1.47 and \u20ac1.30.<\/p>\n
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned that Britain is entering a period of major adjustment.<\/p>\n
Groceries, Apple computers, Microsoft business software, petrol, televisions, vacuum cleaners and new cars are among the items already hit by price rises.<\/p>\n
A retail partner at KPMG, David McCorquodale, told RetailWeek<\/em> on Monday that he believes prices will go up between 5-10 per cent.<\/p>\n He said fixed price retailers, such as pound shops, faced a particular dilemma: \u201cThey\u2019ll be working with suppliers to adjust the size of products \u2013 they\u2019ll be taking a triangle off a bar of Toblerone\u201d.<\/p>\n Since the EU referendum, the average price for a television has risen 11.8 per cent (\u00a388.80) and vacuum cleaners have increased by 11.3 per cent (\u00a323.74), RetailWeek<\/em> said.<\/p>\n But Mr McCorquodale warned retailers against blaming Brexit for price rises.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of those voters will be your customers,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can talk about currency changes but not Brexit \u2013 that\u2019s like saying \u2018you bloody idiots, what have you done?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A consequence of the falling pound is that UK domestic production should become more competitive. However, this positive effect is not the same for all sectors.<\/p>\n A spokesman for the National Farmers Union (NFU) told Chief-Exec.com that it is important to remember that farmers and growers are price takers, not price makers.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir opportunity to benefit from sterling\u2019s recent devaluation is likely to be small,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As most base commodities were priced in US dollars, farmers and growers faced higher prices for imported feed, fuel, fertiliser and machinery.<\/p>\n The UK exported \u00a318 billion worth of food and drink in 2015 to more than 200 countries and territories. The biggest export markets were Ireland, France, the US, Netherlands and Germany.<\/p>\n \u201cBritish farming is the bedrock of the food and drink industry \u2013 a sector worth \u00a3108bn and providing jobs for 3.9m million people,\u201d the NFU spokesman said.<\/p>\n The NFU\u2019s acting chief economics and international affairs adviser, Andrew Francis said many farmers were already struggling to meet the costs of production within an environment of low prices.<\/p>\n \u201cShould we leave the single market, the implications of trade tariffs could potentially be disastrous for many farm businesses,\u201d Dr Francis said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impact could be felt far and wide across the country, with the public being hit with rising food prices and farmers feeling the effects of production cost increases and customs red-tape.\u201d<\/p>\n By Aban Contractor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Currency fluctuation is the \u201cnumber one concern\u201d of many senior grocery industry representatives \u2013 not Brexit \u2013 according to a survey conducted by IGD, the food and grocery research and training charity….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,115],"tags":[62,44,39,55,37],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-brexit","category-featured-news","tag-farming","tag-government","tag-inflation","tag-retail","tag-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned that Britain is entering a period of major adjustment.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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The NFU\u2019s President, Meurig Raymond (right) said: \u201cThe most immediate issues confronting the farming sector are trade and access to labour. These must be at the heart of any discussions for the country\u2019s future farm policy so that our industry is able to achieve its true potential\u201d.<\/p>\n