Can we trust supermarket brands?

When you pick up a packet of meat from the supermarket and it says ‘Willow Farms’, what is the image you conjure up in your mind? Do you imagine the chickens reared on this farm happily pecking around a thatched cottage, searching for grubs in a field that rolls gently down to a river flanked by weeping willows?

Of course you don’t. You’re shopping in Tesco and you’re not that stupid. The country’s biggest retailer (and the UK’s biggest private sector employer) is not buying any of its fresh produce from small-scale farmers, especially not its chickens.

Some of you, however, might reasonably expect that Willow Farm exists. That it has a geographical presence — even if it is on an industrial scale.

Even that is a little optimistic. Willow Farms is a brand. As is Rosedene Farms, which Tesco uses for some of its strawberries and blueberries, despite the bucolic image of an apple tree as its logo.