Negotiations on our exit from the EU have begun, and Theresa May is still sticking to her Brexit guns. And that means everything is up for grabs -- including dropping strict EU standards on what goes in our food -- in the rush to secure trade deals with countries outside of Europe.

It’s a nightmare scenario. UK trade secretary Liam Fox has kicked off trade talks with the US, and says he’s open to putting chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-pumped meat on our supermarket shelves to secure a deal.

We know that big supermarkets like Co-op don’t want to see this any more than we do -- endless confusion about standards will only make their jobs harder.

So let’s use our voices to get supermarkets to speak out and commit to not putting lower standard food on the shelves. This is our chance to stop the UK becoming a corporate free for all.

Theresa May’s hard Brexit means we’re facing a double whammy of jettisoning EU standards and striking a quick trade deal with the US. This opens the door to cheap imports made under US factory farm conditions and grown with 82 pesticides banned in EU. Recently, new report warned that the government is sleepwalking into a post-Brexit future of insecure, unsafe and increasingly expensive food supplies.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Supermarkets might be the only thing standing between us and lower quality food and farm animal welfare standards.

Now is the time to push -- we know Co-op is proud of its commitment to food that’s sustainable and ethically sourced. It stakes its reputation on those values, and works with farmers to meet those standards -- so let's make it speak out for them.

UK Farmers are worried that they won’t be able to compete with the cheap factory farmed produce that could flood the market with a US trade deal and will go out of business. Consumers have fought too hard, and for too long, to see our food safety and animal welfare standards go up in smoke!

Supermarkets care what we think. When tens of thousands of SumOfUs members took action, Sainsbury’s dropped krill oil from its shelves. The supplement is made from the cornerstone of the Antarctic food chain that marine creatures like whales rely on for survival. And Waitrose has already told us it's committed to maintaining its high standards of farming and food production.

So let’s make Co-op speak out too -- in favour of keeping some of the highest standards in the world when it comes to what goes into our food, and how farm animals are treated. For the sake of our health, our environment, our farm animals and our farmers.