Dick Smith to shut up shop

Caput Lupinum

Well-Known Member
Silver Stacker
After 15 years on supermarket shelves, Dick Smith Foods has passed its use by date.

"It's a disaster, it's really sad, because we have the best food," Smith said.

"People stop me in the street all the time and say 'Dick, we love your foods, we support you' but most don't."

At its peak, Dick Smith Foods had a turnover of $80 million per year.

Today the range has halved and profits are shot.

Often cheeky but always upfront, Dick now concedes he can't compete because he pays Aussie wages and supports Aussie farmers.

"He can't continue to not make profits, so he has to close," radio host Alan Jones said.

"If the consumers chooses not to buy that and it's a little bit extra because it's Australian then there is no future and it's very sad."

The reality is Australians aren't supporting Dick Smith Foods.

Dick says only one in 25 shoppers buy one of his products and that is no longer enough to keep the brand alive.

"Virtually no one supports us because it's 30 cents dearer," he said.

Independent senator Nick Xenaphon has thrown his support behind the Australian icon.

"I'd like to see consumers rally behind Dick Smith, I'm going to go and buy a few dick smith products tonight," he said.

"It's really sad but you get to the point where you can't even employ our staff and employ the people in the factories that means it will be closed down," Smith said.

Dick Smith has previously donated more than $6 million in profits to charity.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/252...straits-aussie-household-brand-faces-closure/
 
it said foods so the non electrical dick - the same one that made dick heads and dick cheese
 
cream-cheese-spread_0_1.png
 
Caput Lupinum said:
"If the consumers chooses not to buy that and it's a little bit extra because it's Australian then there is no future and it's very sad."

The reality is Australians aren't supporting Dick Smith Foods.

Dick says only one in 25 shoppers buy one of his products and that is no longer enough to keep the brand alive.
I haven't seen his stuff on the shelves for ages so there's no option to buy. In fact, over the last month another Aussie brand I used to buy regularly each week has mostly disappeared and been replaced by a range of Coles brand products. I checked the ingredients list hoping the manufacturer may have done a deal with Coles, but nope, the ingredients are a bit crappier.
 
Hope he does. Coles and Woolies have priority shelf placement, so that's why you don't see the products anymore. They're either too high for grandma to reach or on the bottom shelf. I'd love to see him a string of Dickfield's shopping complexes.
 
I always buy his peanut butter.

And it is the same Dick Smith that had the Electonics, started Australian Geographic, and then Dick Smith Foods.

Every year when I march on Anzac Day, he is in the crowd with a big thank you sign.
 
Same old Dick. As far as I'm aware his business strategy was to produce a non-competitive product and then rant in the media that consumers should feel obliged to buy it.
 
I knew him professionally back in the early 70s when I was a PMG technician working in a lab in North Sydney. He had his first shop in Crows Nest where we use to buy electronic components.
 
I would happily pay an extra 50 cents on something, for me it's thongs like the choc chip cookies having beef fat in them that turns me off.
 
Back
Top