The UK’s Competition Commission has extended the timetable for the publication of its initial findings into the UK grocery sector.
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The findings will now be released in September – three months later than originally expected. The delay, the Commission said, will have a subsequent knock-on effect for the final report.
“No one factor is behind the delay,” a Commission spokesperson told just-food today (11 Paril). “We have extended the timetable to allow us to conduct a fair and thorough assessment of the sector.”
The Commission said that it was also concerned that it provides interested parties with sufficient time to respond and submit evidence.
“It would be wrong to stick rigidly to timetable as the expense of carrying out our job properly and fairly – as you may know, many parties had been urging us to take longer anyway,” the Commission commented.
Yesterday (10 April), the Commission published four working papers on the local planning authority survey; the competitive effects of own label goods; the impact of new store entry on incumbent stores and one on store margin analysis.
“We still have some work to do in completing our analysis,” the Commission admitted. However, it did emphasise that it is still aiming to complete the inquiry within the statutory deadline. This, the Commission said, “would be pretty good going for an inquiry of this scale”.
