Exclusive Julian Hunt Safeway has come up with a new wheeze to squeeze huge sums of cash out of suppliers. At the end of last year the multiple ran into a storm of protest when it asked manufacturers to stump up £20m to support its 1,000 Line Availability Focus campaign. Now the cheeky multiple is trying to charge suppliers to have products featured in its regionally phased promotional campaign, on top of already agreed discounts. A Safeway spokeswoman said: "Our negotiations with suppliers are confidential. But we are not doing anything different from what our competitors have been doing for some time. There's nothing new happening here." She said if suppliers were asked to contribute to special deals, they benefited because there was an uplift in sales. One Safeway insider said the extra volumes being achieved by the campaign had smashed even its own targets. However, one manufacturer said: "Safeway is desperate for cash ­ the availability campaign was one symptom of that. Its year end is in February and it is in a mess." The revelation that Safeway is again asking manufacturers for cash comes as the Competition Commission prepares to take a closer look at the way supermarkets handle their relationships with suppliers as part of its ongoing probe into the industry. Safeway has been running the regionally phased promotional campaign for the past five months as part of the high:low pricing strategy introduced by new boss Carlos Criado-Perez. Each promotion is run in a limited number of stores and features a selection of top brands that have been slashed in price. The price cuts are supported by stacks of instore merchandising and product displays as well as by leaflet drops. {{NEWS }}

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