You reported in The Grocer's Meat and Fish supplement (19 April, p22) that neither Tesco, Asda nor Sainsbury's responded to your question as to whether the potential collapse of the UK pig industry was of any consequence to their business. As a producer of pigs this just adds to my general level of frustration with the retailers. But if I were a shareholder, customer or government minister, I would be absolutely livid. Why? Because the horrible truth is that the retailers simply don't know the answer. They can see full well what is about to happen to pigmeat supplies. The clock started ticking some months ago now when producers took the decision to cut capacity by culling breeding animals. That clock has been ticking ever since. And the eight to 10-month lag between that action and the consequential reduction in pig supply is now hitting home. The plain truth is that retailers simply don't have a strategy to respond to this inevitability. They have no strategy to protect supplies of high-welfare pork, a category they have invested heavily in over the past few years by insisting on strict standards for UK producers. But how can this be? With retail buyers and executives alike having been brought up on a diet of food price deflation and surplus supplies over the past 30 years, these business gurus now sit like rabbits transfixed by a car's headlights on a lonely rural lane late at night. Sitting there, unable to do anything, just waiting for the inevitable.

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