Growers angry at Coles price cuts

AAP

Australian fruit and vegetable growers fear they will become the latest victims in the supermarket price wars after Coles slashed its fresh produce prices.

A bumper growing season combined with the high Australian dollar means there is an abundance of fruit and vegetables available.

This prompted Coles to announce it would help farmers move excess stock by slashing prices in its stores.

Coles said by making fruit and vegetables more affordable they would provide a more certain market for Australian growers.

But vegetable industry body Ausveg said if the supermarkets got locked into a price war the opposite would be true.

The group's national marketing manager Simon Coburn said aggressive discounting would hurt Australian growers.

"It's not going to be long before Woolworths jump in," he said.

"There's no way they're going to be giving this much ground on Coles.

"The issue is whether these retailers are going to be absorbing the costs themselves, which is pretty unlikely, in which case these discounts will be passed on to the growers to absorb and that's not sustainable at all."

Mr Coburn said in the short term the growers supplying Coles would benefit from higher sales.

But if the aggressive pricing tactics prompt Woolworths to follow suit, the effect on the industry as a whole would be negative.

...Read more at Yahoo!7 NEWS

Will the price drop see you putting more fruit and vegetables on the table?

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Rebekka07:22am Friday 10th February 2012 ESTReport Abuse
i was at coles the other day & i will admit that i brought some fruit & veg that was price slashed. i felt guilty about doing so. i felt bad for the grower, but i have to feed my family & honestly, it's expensive to feed the family fruit & veg. the government goes on about the obesity issues in australia & that we all need to trim our waist lines & eat from the five food groups, but they don't do anything to help the familiies feed their children healthy food. i hate when you go to the grocery store & everything on special is junk food. so, of course i've jumped at the opportunity to fill my fridge with lots of fruit & veg for below market price. i need to think about my family first. but, to the growers "i am sorry"...
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Scott06:08am Thursday 09th February 2012 ESTReport Abuse
Just another example of Coles/woollies screwing Aussie farmers & expecting the public to believe it's to help families. BS. When will the govt get off their butts and do something real about it? Not just another tax payer funded inquiry that ends in rhetoric without results!
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Hamish09:32am Saturday 04th February 2012 ESTReport Abuse
MR. ANDREW O'keefe, the farmer gets only around 27 - 37 cents per litre of milk, how is that enough to feed a cow? How is that enough to sustain the land the cow need to live on? The simple answer is that it isn't, and anybody that thinks you can is out of their mind, farmers get robbed by these supermarkets cutting their prices, maybe instead of cutting their prices so the "consumer" is pleased with price cuts maybe they should give the farmers more for their hard work
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Darren09:30am Saturday 04th February 2012 ESTReport Abuse
Fair enough the federal government has allowed the ongoing price competition in the supermarkets - the one thing that they should ban however is the discount fuel deals at their petrol outlets - the prices are totally misleading when comparing any 2 stations side by side - they are surely pricing smaller competitors out of the market - and I guarantee we're paying for our fuel discount in our grocery bills
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Sophia02:49pm Friday 03rd February 2012 ESTReport Abuse
Coles doesn't buy local produce?
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Growers angry at Coles price cuts

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