Check the labels at the supermarket folks. Tell everyone at work. This is agribusiness taking us down the disgusting road of food monopolies such as in USA and Europe. We are making ourselves extremely vulnerable to becoming a nation of ill-fed peasants. What on earth is happening!!? Incredible: and they try and distract us (successfully) with such rubbish as this: Stuff her. I feel defeated when I see this madness all around.
This is true. I work for a food manufacturing company that is lucky (unlucky?) enough to have the Australia wide contract for supplying Woolworths. Our major competitor supplies Coles. Last year in contract price negotiations, Woolies tried to screw the company to the wall. When the company was refused a 6c/kg price rise (8%) due to the world price of this line nearly doubling, and the increased cost of production due to energy and fuel prices, they told Woolies to go jump. Woolies said they'd just import from Thailand and India. Company threatened to run an advertising campaign that let the public know that Woolies was not "supporting Australian farmers with Australian products". Woolies backed down and accepted price rise. However, said company is contracted to supply these retail food lines at a fixed price delivered Australia wide. That means from the east coast to Perth and Hobart for that same price as the supermarket just down the road. The price Woolies sells this product off the shelf is exactly double this supply price. Yes, 100% mark up. What are the observed ramifications in my area? Farmers are getting out, or their kids refuse to take over the farm and leave for the city where they have half a chance at a decent income. Half of the company went into administration last year - due largely to Penny Wong and her ludicrous policies as Minister for Environment. The other half of the company is currently being bought out by a foreign-owned multinational as foreign countries are currently spending up big to secure their food supply.
Little bit off the topic but interesting info. Im really into healthy food but just learned about the numbers you see on fruit stickers. If the PLU starts with 3 or 4 (4digits) -conventionally grown,sprayed with pesticides or chemical starts with 8 -genetically modified starts with 9-organic Always read the label and use that frea#ng internet to educate yourself
Another tip regarding organic food - don't take the label as gospel. When product specifications need to be "certified" in order to command a premium, it opens up the door for questionable practices. I have seen this first hand with organic food labelling.
I only buy Australian olive oil, most imports are the dregs that they cannot sell in Europe. I do not shop at the Grocery Duopoly, they are a blight on our nation. I never touch any processed fruit juice unless it is clearly marked 100% Australian produce packaged in Australia. The only processed vegetables that I will use are tomatoes, and it is easy to find Australian grown, I don't fall for the "romance of Italy" illusion, a factory jamming fruit that is not good enough for the supermarket shelf into a can is the same no matter where it is located. I am beginning to believe that we as Australians are approaching an evolutionary dead end as a society because we are becoming sick and fat eating imported processed garbage, we have a government that is really a reflection of our on venal greedy stupidity, we are raising our children to be sheltered consumer drones that live in front of computers, we have made NSW the second most litigious place on Earth and we have no loyalty to other Australians, we prefer to send our money offshore instead of supporting Australian manufacturers and businesses. Every action has consequences, and how we will moan at the consequences of our own actions soon.
^+1. I avoid the duopoly whenever possible, and try to be aware of what's in the contents. But it can go a lot further; ie any cans that are lined with white plastic on the inside are quite possibly leaking carcinogens into the food. It might improve the shelf life, but it won't improve yours. I've also become increasingly aware of where proceeds of my purchases might end up and the purposes for which it could be used. See:- http://www.halalchoices.com.au/
Basically I try to stick to independants where possible and bulk buy often. Farmers markets and growers co-ops are almost always worth checking out.
Well put. I've just spent 6 months in UK, where I had many in depth conversations with a food technologist and lower level manager for the big chains there. He explained the business model there, which is morally bankrupt in the extreme. I believe that the Australian duo use them as a model and employ their tactics. The rationale is cheap food to the masses, and what that means is giant profits to them, with producers crushed if they do not accept the barest of margins. The food quality is of a basic standard, and his tales about the treatment of staff, producers and public in the name of profit. "venal greedy stupidity" does not begin to cover it. If we don't support our farmer's markets, small retailers and co-operative ventures we will find two choices, being the in-house brandings of the duopoly and a further separation of rich and poor with all the horror that entails. Australia: The Lucky Country. Lucky because there is still time to act - but the window is closing fast.
As a nation that seems to be obsessed with shows that celebrate the art of food such as Masterchef and all those programs hosted by famous chefs we seem strangely happy to line up like bovines to buy tasteless, gassed, preserved fruit and veg from long term storage neon-lit feedlot stores such as those that The Duopoly blight our suburbs with. IGA has better fruit and veg, the two IGA's near us are soooo much better than the factory supermarkets, but the little fruit store across the street from our local IGA is actually cheaper and the owner picks out his F&V himself from the markets each week. If Rome was poisoned by lead plumbing, New Rome is being destroyed by dead, irradiated, genetically modified HFCS laden non-food. As for "low fat" and "polyunsaturated" don't get me started. The healthiest people that I know make a point of eating loads of butter, coconut oil, avocados, fatty meat and nut and seed oils. None of them are overweight. The people that I know that look like heart attack candidates live on "low fat" processed "foods", margarine, hydrogenated vegetable oils and are terrified of any fat or oil that is unprocessed.
Which really surprises me. Seeing the explosion in demand for young coconuts here I would think that a coconut operation would be a fantastic venture in Australia except that you are competing with Thailand prices. I must say that I am OK with buying foods from the South Pacific and New Zealand, we need to support the region and they don't irradiate AFAIK.
Sadly because of lax labelling laws here you can never be too sure of what we are actually getting on the shelf here. Product of Australia may mean Packed in Australia from Imported Goods. Also have heard of countried using NZ lax labelling laws to dump their poor quality goods over there, which we then mistakenly buy thinking its good NZ produce (not imported rubbish) Why do you think China is buying up all our farms ... to supply their own food chain. Give me Aussie produce any day .. at least we wont unknowingly be eating food which may contain heavy metals, or be fertilised using human feces and sprayed with banned compounds.
I always said if I was a mega rich billionaire I would like to be able to afford to grab a huge market share of the Australian farming industry to have a big crack at Woolies and Coles as a third major chain. By not having to screw oneself to get the 100%+ markup on the shelf, surely the end price to the consumer would be lower than the current "market" prices on the shelves. The farmer would have an incentive only to produce the best product (working for me) rather than only constantly having to worry about getting the most product to survive the duopoly wants. Sadly, the dollars required to pull this off are impossible to imagine and it would take a consortium of rich Australians pulling together and a huge public co-op. First thing we can do is put public pressure on pollies to ban the selling of farmland to foreign interests.
"The Sunday Age investigation has found: AusVeg is calling for the government to help people exit the industry." WTF? Why would the industry's peak body be asking the Govt to help people leave the industry? Surely they should instead be asking (at a minimum) for assistance to stay afloat?
It was not that long ago that the Australian government, because of depressed sugar prices world wide, was encouraging sugar farmers to either diverge away from sugar growing, and/or sell their farms to the "tree growers". And one wonders how the Chinese were able to buy Tully sugar mill. Why? Because it meant the mill would survive, and meant that both farmers and mill employees still had the ability to feed their families. As to what would occur with what the mill produced ie where the sugar would eventually go once produced. Well, thats another story. But at least Tully sugar mills future was assured. Unlike Babinda sugar mill which still stands idle 3 years after it closed. I hear now that the Chinese have only recently purchased that Mill and are looking at starting it up again but for ethonol production. There is good and bad to Chinese investment in Australia. And it isn't a black and white argument for all concerned.
IMO, because it is the Govt policies that are damaging the industry and sending it broke. The least the the Govt can do is assist people to get out while there is something for them to salvage. Assistance in the industry I am involved in has been requested, and rejected. IMO There is not enough benefit to the union movement to justify the spending by the current Govt. (unlike steel or car manufacturing, for example) Wow, didn't take long to identify the industry I was referring to!
JulieW.. Thanks for a great post..Its one we can all learn something from.. Now my little contribution. One of the biggest tomato farms in Qld has just gone belly up here in Bundaberg..Financial troubles so I hear. Now all fresh tomatoes that you buy on Australia in the winter either come from Bowen or Bundaberg..Southerners be prepared to pay more for your tomatoes in the cold months. A point of interest. Have you ever noticed that all the tomatoes that you buy in the supermarkets are all the same size? The answer all the rest is left to rot in the fields, bigger and smaller! What a waste of water, fertilizer and energy. Same happens with sweet potatoes. Only medium size ones, all of a standard size are sold in supermarkets.. Now you pay $4 a kilo for them yet I can buy a trailer load for $20 of big and small ones. Personally, I prefer the smaller ones! Now on to apricots..Maybe someone will be able to tell me why dried apricots from Australian Growers are nowhere as good to eat as the ones from Turkey...Theirs are softer with more juice. I think that maybe the Australian fruit should not be let out to dry for so long. Don't tell me its the fallout from the nuclear disaster in Russia. I agree with all the posters above and try to buy Australian products at all times.. But surely it must be understood that all governments both liberal and ALP have encouraged free trade agreements with other countries including NZ, South Korea, Singapore and are trying to get one with China..When you do this, it is only predictable that a lot of your industries are going to suffer. IMHO we should not allow imports from countries in Europe if they have subsidies for their farmers in the goods they export. Regards Errol 43
The land grab from foreign entity (chinese or whatever nationality) is a speculative move. They are planning on producing Australian food that can be marketed as premium food back in their own country. Factoring labour costs etc, premium priced food item can work. Assuming you have a connection and distribution channel in Asia. However, Australians will start to import more and more cheap food from Europe, America and Asia. I don't think this can be changed. Because pressure on cost of living is very high, so woolies and coles constantly try to source cheaper food. The land grab to secure food supply happens in south east asia, south america and Africa. To secure food supply, land and labour must be cheap and plentiful. Australia can not supply the world. Not enough water.
True, you cannot be sure 100% what are the ingredients as nothing is labelled properly but you have a chance to take the item and get it inspected
