End supermarket profiteering

No child should be left hungry this summer

As food prices rise and millions struggle to pay for food, supermarkets are posting eye-watering profits. The Tory government claims that escalating costs are down to rising wages - even as it enforces real-terms pay cuts on public sector by denying them a rise in line with inflation. If your pay isn't going up but prices are, someone is pocketing the difference.

We say it's time for change - no child should be left hungry this summer. We demand:

Immediate price reductions on supermarket food and higher wages for supermarket workers - paid for by profits.
Government price controls on staple foods.
Increases in pay, benefits and pensions to end the cost-of-living crisis.
Free school meals for all, so no child is left hungry.

Food poverty and rising prices: What do the numbers say?

Food price inflation is hovering around 19%. That means a weekly shop that cost £100 last year would cost £120 this year. For context, the government recently offered public sector payrises not exceeding 7%.
4.7 million people, or 7% of the population, is living in food poverty, according to official data. 12% of children live in food poverty - that's more than one child in 10 not getting enough food, in the country with the sixth-highest GDP in the world.
In 2022/23, the Trussell Trust supplied almost 3 million three-day emergency food parcels. Over 2 million people live in a household which used a food bank last year.

Supermarket profiteering: Shareholders raking it in as prices rise

Research by Unite the Union reveals that Tesco and Sainsbury's are preparing to pay out a total £1.2 billion to their shareholders - their highest "common" dividend since 2015 (a "special" dividend was paid out by Tesco recently following the sale of part of its business).
Net profits of the Big 3 supermarkets - Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda - totalled £3.1 billion in 2021/22 - double the amount they made before the pandemic.
"Final net profits" recorded by supermarkets have been lower - but it is not true that supermarkets are holding down prices to protect customers. The discrepancy is caused by other one-off expenses including legal costs, changed property asset valuations, restructuring and increased admin costs.
Research by Which? at the end of last year showed that supermarket budget and own-brand ranges had gone up more than premium ranges, impacting those reliant on cheaper products the most. At the time, these ranges had increased by up to 19.2% compared with 12.3% for branded food.

Tories and corporations working hand in hand

It's no surprise that our cruel Tory government is working hand in hand with supermarket bosses and their greedy shareholders. The Tories exist to protect the interests of the rich and powerful - and they have their hands in the jar too.

Former president of Sainsbury's John Sainsbury, who passed away last year, was a Tory lord who donated more than £2m to the Tories between 2008 and 2018 alone.
Malcolm Walker, director of supermarket chain Iceland, donated £110k to the Tories between 2012 and 2018.
Asda Property Holdings and Asda Stores have made donations to the Tories in the past.

People don't give money to the Conservative Party for no reason. This cosy financial relationship puts the Tories in the pocket of the supermarkets. The Tories refuse to take a tough line on profiteering because the supermarkets are paying them not to. It's cash for policies! It also fits with the dominant neoliberal ideology within the Tory party that business should be left to its own devices and government regulation is bad.

While the Tories have let supermarket profits skyrocket, they have spent the last 13 years in government working to keep public sector wages down. Between January 2008 to May 2023, real-terms public-sector weekly earnings fell by over 8%. Even with the below-inflation pay rises offered last week after the governemnt buckled following months of strike action, public-sector pay would still be an average of £1,400 per year behind pre-pandemic levels. Private sector pay has fared slightly better, but workers were often in lower-paid work to start with - and they have still seen a significant real-terms pay cut.

What can you do?

No child should be left hungry this summer - that's why the People's Assembly is calling on the government to provide free school meals to all throughout the holidays and beyond. In fact, no one should be unable to feed themselves - that's why we demand price controls now.

In Cambridge, we hold regular demos, actions and events to campaign for an end to austerity and the attack on ordinary people by this cruel Tory government.