Nasty Supermarkets, Bad People

That seems to be the tenor of this report:

The contents are as hard-hitting as they are eye-opening. According to these documents, supermarkets use a broad range of psychological and strategic manoeuvres to extract the best price from the manufacturers. Alleged tactics used by supermarkets over the years include everything from deliberately misunderstanding a conversation to pleading poverty to "physically disturbing" the supplier, the documents say.

The tactics even have colourful names such as The Trojan Horse, The Social Smell and The Barrister. Unsure of how sophisticated the negotiating techniques listed within these documents were, we decided to show our file to a seasoned hostage and kidnap negotiator, and the man who bargained with the Bosnian government during the Balkan crisis in the early 1990s. Even he was surprised.

"Not only do I recognise the phrases, I recognise all these tactics in every aspect of business I have done in the last few years. What chills me to the bone is a recognition before they even start they are entering into an unprincipled negotiation. It is down and dirty," says Duncan Bullivant, the chief executive of Henderson Risk Group, a City-based risk and security management company that operates from Latin America to Africa.

Actually reading through the tactics I have to admit they all sounded really rather tame: but then I agree that not everyone has been quite as lunatic as I in their negotiations. A decade and more in the Russian metals business has had its interesting moments, from being offered enriched uranium as a possible purchase to having three North Korean generals on the other side of the desk making angry noises about their wanting some aluminium (no, you'll be glad to hear, I didn't sell the first to the second).

But what rather amuses me about it all, the report that is, not the Russian metals business, is that they never quite mention the point of it all. The supermarkets are negotiating on our behalf: if they screw a discount or a better deal out of the supplier than that pops up on the price on the shelf a few weeks later.

For between the food producers and us the consumers there's a certain imbalance of power: they have far more pricing power than we do. The supermarkets are acting to balance this, to be a countervailing influence on our behalf.