Supermarkets face code deadline

TRADE Secretary Patricia Hewitt today gave Britain's top four supermarkets four weeks to agree to a new code of practice governing relations between the food retailing industry and its suppliers.

The code has been drawn up by Director General of Fair Trade John Vickers, following recommendations from the Competition Commission.

It is intended to increase transparency between supermarkets and their suppliers and has four key stipulations - that supermarkets pay suppliers on time; that all agreements should take the form of written contracts; that there should be no change of specification without prior warning and that there should be no instances of parties operating retrospectively.

The code will apply to Asda, Safeway, Sainsbury's and Tesco and will allow for independent mediation to take place if disagreements occur.

Suppliers and supermarkets were consulted prior to today's news.