A CAMPAIGN to support farmers in Herefordshire and across Britain has made a major leap forward.

Aldi is the second major retailer to respond to a call for supermarkets to back the nation’s farmers by adding ‘buy British’ tabs to their websites after Morrisons announced a new ‘British’ section for its online food store last year.

The move follows an open letter written by MP Dr Luke Evans to eight major supermarkets asking for measures that would direct shoppers to homegrown food to help boost the economy and cut the UK’s carbon footprint.

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The letter was co-signed by 121 MPs representing all the major parties in England and Wales, including Sir Bill Wiggin, MP for North Herefordshire.

Since Sir Bill signed the open letter over 30,000 people have signed a petition in support of the campaign and the effort has been endorsed by the Government.

Outside of their overall sourcing policies, most major supermarkets do not yet have a ‘buy British’ function across their food ranges, although the Sainsbury’s and Waitrose sites have sections for seasonal British produce on their fruit and vegetables page. Sainsbury’s also allows shoppers to select British meat and fish.

Sir Bill Wiggin said: “It’s great to see supermarkets putting our farmers first.

“Both Morrisons and Aldi have shown great leadership on this, and I trust other supermarkets will make the change soon too.”

“Our Best of British webpage aims to give our customers the chance to navigate British products more easily whilst supporting the thousands of local suppliers that we work with,” said Julie Ashfield, Managing Director of Buying at Aldi UK.

“We are proud to champion so many British suppliers and they are at the heart of our success, allowing us to offer our customers great British quality at the best possible prices.”

NFU President Minette Batters said: “it’s great to see MPs and their constituents getting behind the idea of a ‘buy British tab’ online”.

“We know from our own independent survey that 86 per cent of the public want to buy more British food, but it is often tricky to determine what products are produced in the UK and this simple change would help shoppers do that.”