“It's normally cheaper to tell a good story than it is to do a good thing, and unfortunately that is just the truth. And that's what a shareholder will demand because that's what they can make money from.”
James Reed: all about business · October 2026
Singh-Watson was talking about greenwash in food retail, giving the example of supermarket own-brand labels named to sound like British family farms. He said most shoppers want to do the right thing but are too busy to be well informed.
Transcript
yes there is what they actually
want and this might be difficult yeah
so i do i think we should be willing to push back against the customer is always um right uh you know it because it's just too i think most people want to do the right thing given the right information but they don't have the right information and and and it's really easy with a clever advertising company you know to to pretend you're doing the right thing when you're not there's you know a huge amount of green wash and uh you know and in my sector we have tesco's with eight brands which to all intents and purposes look they come from british family farms rosendale farms but i think peppers and vegetables they might come from egypt or whatever but or willow farm for their chicken sounds like a british family farm uh it's actually the brand is sort of administered effectively by global corporation uh and and and the chickens never go outside and it's hideous so you know you can it's because we have such busy lives and we can't possibly be that well informed on everything i'm afraid people have just got too used to the idea or business has got it's it's normally cheaper to tell a good story than it is to do a good thing and and uh unfortunately that is just the truth and that that's what a shareholder will demand because that's what they can make money from and and that's what that's what we get a lot of greenwash
you've you've said that some of the farmers supplying riverford you know would no longer be in business without you um how how how do you decide what you know what is a fair price and to sort of be the other side of this equation
okay well we are farmers ourselves so we still grow about 20 of what goes in the boxes so we kind of know what we can produce it for and uh expect other people to be able to produce it as at a somewhat similar but mostly we ask you know we we sit down in october with our suppliers and and say you know what would you like to grow next year what do you want to grow more of what do you want to grow less of you know what do you need to stay in business and to invest in your in your businesses in the future and and historically there hasn't been much pushback against that i don't think that's actually sustainable i i don't think that which is essentially a cost plus business the way you've
been doing it kind of
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