One of our producers used to work for a potato farmer. Not anymore. On Friday, as I did my rounds down in the South West, he told me why. The farmer he worked for had made a deal with one of the UK’s biggest supermarkets - the supermarket would buy all the potatoes that the farmer could grow for £X. So the farmer and our producer seeded 1,000 acres of land with potatoes. Yes, 1,000 acres. Harvest time came and the crop was good. “We’re ready to dig ‘em up,” the farmer told the supermarket. “Great,” came the reply. “We’ll have them all. The price will be £Y.” “Eh?,” said the farmer. “But you said you’d buy ‘em for £X.” The supermarket referred the farmer to a clause hidden deep in one of the many pages of the very long contract it had made with him. The clause gave the supermarket the ability to change the price of the potatoes if they could find them at the same price – get this – anywhere in the world. And surprise, surprise, they had. Some obliging farmers in Poland could offer the same potatoes at £Y, so that was all they were willing to pay. £Y, our producer explained to me, wasn’t even going to cover the cost of the diesel to get the potatoes to the supermarket. So they were left to rot. All 1,000 acres of them. I’ve found myself using the world ‘cynical’ a lot recently when describing the approach of the supermarkets and Big Food. Stories like this – and there are just tons and tons of them – are why. It makes me Wylde. I hope it does you too. Nick PS - Wylde producers set their own prices.