Bad news for
Australians imported toxic frost products from New Zealand
Souerce: Yahoo 7 news
Fears for avocado industry
Growers say supermarkets have taken away the consumers' rights to buy Aussie products by only stocking imports.New Zealand has become the back door for Asian produce to get here, and the process is raising further concerns for the health of Australian shoppers and farmers.
We hate losing to them on the sporting field, but when it comes to business there's no competition, and we're copping a hammering.
Now, thanks to a loosening of quarantine laws, the Kiwis are enjoying a free kick.
More stories from Today Tonight
Apple growers can expect a $130 million hit this year, thanks to food imports from China and New Zealand.
Now avocados growers are facing oblivion thanks to cheaper Kiwi imports, and our major grocery chains turning their backs on Australian farmers.
New South Wales avocado grower Christina Culross’ livelihood is on the line thanks to the obsession of grocery chains to keep dropping prices.
She's calling on the public to reject the imported Kiwi avocados and send a message to Government and supermarkets.
According to Culross, in two weeks’ time, every supermarket in the eastern states would have switched to New Zealand fruit. “We're still picking for the next few weeks, and there are plenty of other growers in New South Wales who will be picking until Christmas,” she said.
“So to put it in perspective ... this year is a bumper crop for us. We hope to produce 90,000 trays of avocados and New Zealand are exporting three million trays to Australia between September and January, so we are up against a tsunami of avocados.”
Today Tonight's latest food stories
Ausbuy’s Lynne Wilkinson says Australian consumers are being duped, and calls on all the supermarket chains to be upfront and declare the real reasons they're stocking New Zealand avocados instead of home-grown varieties.
“These imports are coming in when our dollar is high, so they're cheap, they're probably subsidised by their own Governments, and the consumer is not necessarily going to get the benefit. The retailer is probably going to take the profit difference between buying an Australian good and a cheap import,” Wilkinson said.
“There seems to be a lot of food coming in from New Zealand (but) New Zealand doesn't actually grow as much as is coming out of it. Our manufacturers (like Heinz and McCains) have closed here, to open factories there. So they're no longer sourcing from our farmers, they're sourcing from New Zealand, or the product is coming in from China and being processed to New Zealand.”
Two thirds of the frozen vegetables in fridges are now sourced from foreign investors.
Coles claims to be stocking avocados in their Western Australia and South Australia stores but due to supply shortages they have to import New Zealand avocados. Woolworths claim to stock avocados in their South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland stores.
Not good enough, says Ausbuy.
Response statements
- Woolworths:
When it comes to private label grocery products our preference is to use Australian suppliers and to only import private label products where a domestic supplier does not tender, we cannot get the quality or supply at home or secure products at a price that our customers would be willing to pay.
Traditionally, the domestic avocado season runs from May to October during which time 100 per cent of fruit stocked at Woolworths comes from Australia. As Australian supplies reduce we usually begin switching to NZ avocadoes, however, this year our growers underestimated supply and had a surplus of fruit on the market.
We have sent the remaining stock of domestically grown avocadoes (including some of the surplus fruit) to Woolies stores in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the NT. As such, we are the only major retailer to be currently supplying Australian avocadoes to Queenslanders.
- Coles:
Contrary to the implication in your second question (How many of your private label products were once sourced from Australian farmers, and now are imported from overseas?), we are not increasing imports, of either fresh produce or packaged private label product – quite the opposite. In fresh produce, we have an import replacement program, where we work with Australian growers to extend local growing seasons, reducing the need to import fresh produce. I’ve attached some case studies for further information.
In the case of packaged private label products, the attached press release outlines the fact that Coles brand has more products with the Australian Made logo than any other brand. We are also the only Australian supermarket to offer a private label Australian Grown frozen vegie range.
Our avocado sourcing this year is no different to previous years. We are currently sourcing Australian avocados for all our WA and SA stores (sourced from within those two states respectively). From March to September, we source avocados for all Coles stores from Bundaberg in Queensland. Between September and February, we are not able to source sufficient commercial quantities of Australian avocados, and so fruit is sourced from New Zealand during this period. We’ve had conversations with Avocados Australia to look at opportunities to source even more Australian avocados in the future.
