There were a couple of meetings organised by Martyn Dewhurst of Tunnel Tech recently.
One was in Tipperary and one was in Monaghan.
The gist of the meetings was a look at how the mushroom industry in Australia has managed to overcome the power of the big supermarkets and successfully achieve good prices for the produce down under.
Martyn organised the meetings hoping that a pulling together of the industries in England, Ireland and Scotland could somehow be achieved, with similarly positive results.
However the general feeling elicited after the meetings was that the market here in Europe is more complex with the nationalities involved i.e. Irish, English, Dutch and Polish, managing to undercut each other.
Divided against the power of the multiples creates the optimum conditions for them to exploit the national industries, maximising supermarket profits and minimising revenues flowing to the mushroom industry.
