Small shops must be part of the debate, not just the big retail chains, said Zhivka Grozdeva, a grower and board member of the Bulgarian Fruit Growers Association. She spoke at the MORE THAN TRADE modern retail forum, held for the third time at the Grand Hotel Millennium in Sofia.

"If we take an average, the markup is between 10 and 15 percent," Grozdeva said of the chains. She said growers have never seen markups in the triple digits.

Small outlets are a big scourge for growers, she said. In summer, at least 50% of the fruit and vegetables grown in Bulgaria are sold there, and the markups are often huge.

Grozdeva said growers who have worked well with the chains for decades are not being heard. If they get more say, she said, the talks will be better informed and more focused. The chains are a big market for Bulgarian produce, she said. They are also the most reliable source of cleaner food with fewer pesticides and fertilisers: their limits on pesticide residues are stricter than those of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA).

Grozdeva named irrigation as one of the problems in production. The Irrigation Systems company covers about one sixth to one seventh of the country's farmland. Stable, predictable fruit and vegetable production is impossible if growers cannot count on irrigation for a long time, she said. The lack of predictability also hurts relations with retailers, she said.

Another problem is labour. Grozdeva said there are no workers, and people do not want to do field work in summer, so the cost of pay and social security contributions keeps rising. The paperwork burden is huge, she added. Every year the authorities promise to cut it, but it grows.

"All this leads to very costly production, I would say uncompetitive," Grozdeva said.

Subsidies are a factor and will stay one if Bulgaria wants its own production, she said.

The forum was organised by the Modern Trade Association (SMT). This year's motto is "Everyone Talks. Myths vs Reality".