Market traders say they are disappointed after a college decided to buy its fruit and vegetables from a supplier more than 40 miles away.

Leicester College, which has a campus in Aylestone Road, Leicester, used to spend £2,000 a month on fresh produce from the nearby Wholesale Market, in Commercial Square.

Traders said they had provided fruit and veg for the college’s culinary and catering students for the past 20 years, but were told a few months ago they were losing the majority of the orders to a supplier in Birmingham.

A spokesman for the college said they had not ruled out buying from traders in Leicester, but made the change due to “quality of produce, price and service.”

Market workers said the college should be supporting local businesses.

One trader, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s all the same products, so to say it’s about quality is nonsense.

“Of course customers come and go these days, but when you have dealt with someone for 20 years you don’t expect this.”

Traders said a new employee, who is not from Leicester, had been put in charge of ordering produce and had made the decision to change suppliers, but the college would not say whether or not this was true.

The trader said: “In a time when we should be supporting locally, and also thinking about the environment, it doesn’t make sense for a college which is basically across the road from us to get stuff from Birmingham.”

A spokesman for the college said they still used the main Leicester market and were “open to using local suppliers.”

He added: “The suppliers used by the college are benchmarked and reviewed on a continual basis based on quality of produce, price and service.”

The spokesman did not say how much produce was still bought locally, but said the majority now came from Birmingham.

Councillor Paul Westley, the city council’s spokesman for markets, said he was “100 per cent disappointed” in the college.

He said: “With so many local businesses struggling, you would really hope it was important to them to support local businesses as much as possible. The market and traders and people they supply to employ a lot of young people, many of whom went to the college. Let’s just hope they rethink this move.”

source: thisisbusiness-eastmidlands.co.uk