The substantial investment farm businesses need to supply Britain’s major retailers was highlighted when Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King visited Elveden Farms in Suffolk.

Mr King spent three hours touring the farm, looking at its arable and vegetable operations and finishing in the shop and café restaurant which sells produce under the Elveden brand.

During the tour he was shown the farm’s new grain store, its state-of-the-art onion drying and packing plant and found out how the business was also farming with strong environmental credentials.

The visit to the 22,500 acre farm estate was arranged following a meeting between Mr King and NFU president Peter Kendall earlier this year, when Mr Kendall invited Mr King to visit members’ farms.

Elveden farm manager Lindsay Hargreaves said: “This visit was a chance to show Mr King an example of British farming at its best, but also an opportunity to explain the challenges we are facing.

“We are a major supplier of field-scale vegetables such as onions, potatoes and carrots to Britain’s supermarkets but it has needed significant investment to get where we are today.

“That’s an investment that needs to be recognised and rewarded if businesses like ours are to remain profitable in the future.

“We also stressed the need for more effective communication between retailers and suppliers, right down the supply chain to farm level.”

Elveden Farms covers 10,000 acres, the largest contiguous cultivated lowland holding in the UK.

It grows about 70,000 tonnes of vegetables every year on 3,500 acres of land, as well as rye, barley and wheat. The estate includes about 3,500 acres of protected heathland and amenity woodland and commercial forest. In all, 90% of the land is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

As well as Mr Hargreaves, Mr King was accompanied on the tour by estate director Michael Douglas and Elveden Produce managing director Jeremy Allpress.

Mr Hargreaves said: “It was good to see the chief executive of one of the big four retailers coming out onto the farm and taking a genuine interest in what’s going on. We hope this will be the start of more effective dialogue from retailers back through to the primary producer.”