Government is urging all supermarkets to introduce a Buy British section on their websites to make it easier for people to support UK farmers and businesses – following on from it being introduced by Bradford based Morrisons.
Shipley MP Philip Davies met with ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to get support for the issue, following months of campaigning.
Food Minister Mark Harper said government backs the initiative and wants others to follow suit.
The simple change would see a search tool added to search for British food.
Mr Davies, who worked for ASDA for 12 years before entering Parliament said: “I am delighted government is backing the call and urging supermarkets to introduce the change to their websites.
“I know how much customers wanted to source local produce and buy British when I worked in retail. Many shops and businesses already sell and label British produce and do everything they can to support our local farmers, but now more people are choosing to shop online, I want to see these specific sections on websites rather than people having to trawl through everything. It would make it accessible if all the produce were in one place.”
In December Chief Executive of Bradford based Morrisons Rami Baitiéh, confirmed the section was available on its morrisons.com site.
At the time Mr Davies said he was delighted it was Bradford based business that led the way and said he would continue to get government to back the idea.
In a letter to Mr Davies, Mr Harper wrote: “This Government will always back British farmers who produce some of the highest quality food in the world, contribute billions to our economy, and are the custodians of our countryside. We want more people to be able to access nutritious and locally sourced food. That is why we support calls for industry-led action to support customers to ‘Buy British’ when they shop online.”
He added: “We want to ensure that even more of the public has ample opportunity to buy our excellent food and drink. We are pleased to see that Morrisons has created an online ‘British’ dropdown option on its website to help consumers buy British produce. We encourage other supermarkets to follow suit with similar initiatives.”
Mr Davies was one of more than 120 cross party MPs who campaigned for the issue and wrote to supermarket bosses calling for change. More than 27,000 people also signed a petition by the National Farmers Union (NFU), calling for a “Buy British” section online.
