Premier Foods is "to simplify" its controversial practice of asking its suppliers for payments to continue doing business with the firm.

The company behind such brands as Oxo and Mr Kipling was criticised strongly after the BBC revealed it had received millions of pounds from such payments.

Premier Food Statement issued Sunday 7 Dec

"Our ‘invest for growth’ programme has worked well for us over the last 18 months in allowing us to consolidate our supplier base and invest in innovation, marketing and promotions to support our brands. Many of our suppliers have chosen to invest with us and have grown their business as a result, despite the challenging market environment.

Most companies look for value from their suppliers and will commonly negotiate discounts or lump sums wherever they can which will be offered and accepted by suppliers if they believe their business will benefit. This is standard business practice. The investment payments we have requested from our suppliers are effectively just one form of discount of which there are many different types.

Over the last few days we have clearly seen that this mechanism has been widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. In this situation, we are fully prepared to simplify the details of our future programme to a more conventional type of discount negotiation, potentially based on price, value or volume based rebates or lump sums. The most important aspect for us is that we continue to develop strategic supplier partnerships that are focused on delivering mutual growth."