Food industry in crisis

On March 26, 2013, in the nose, by pauline
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ABC Background Briefing investigative program delves into our food industry in crisis. Many food producers are operating in waver thin margins, others have already collapsed. This week farmers and producers speak out to Background Briefing journalist Hagar Cohen. Food producers claim that the Duopoly are using their dominance to control the market. Now the ACCC are examining once again new claims about their practices, such as using their market power to control their suppliers. The duopoly control almost 70% of the market. Up to now many farmers have been loathe to speak out for fear of loosing their contracts.

The milk wars is another issue of this ongoing story of farmers not being given a fair deal. Listen to the story run by the ABC in February “Dairy farmers face ruin amid supermarket milk war“.
Farmers state that they are getting 25 or 26 cents a litre and the cost of production varies from farm to farm but for some it is around 43 cents a litre. “So who would want to be a dairy farmer” article by Rebecca Halse on the Save Australian Farming web site gives an historical overview of how it started.

Woolworths has admitted that $1-a-litre milk is unsustainable and has taken steps to deliver fairer prices to dairy farmers. This supermarket is set to trial a new scheme where they will cut the processors out of the chain and negotiate directly with the farmers on prices. Read article

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Duopoly power in the news

On June 14, 2012, in the nose, by pauline
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ADELE Ferguson reporter from The Age writes in her article “Heat to go on grocery duopoly” about the issues surrounding the power of the Duopolies. As Ferguson says in the close of her article, “if enough suppliers and smaller competitors are driven out of business, it will reduce choice and eventually drive up prices”.
The journalists from Sydney Morning Herald Royce Millar and Melissa Fyfe “Are Farmers Markets a viable alternative” highlights that farmers’ markets can only work if they have local farms to supply them, read their full article.

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Australian Duopoly

On June 5, 2012, in the nose, by pauline
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MELISSA Fyfe and Royce Millar, journalists for The Age investigate the food business with regard to the duopoly supermarkets in Australia. “About 90% of their fresh produce now comes direct from a diminishing number of growers…about seven or eight producers supply 80% of Australia’s supply. The story behind the rows of fruit and vegetables at the supermarket duopoly is about the corporatisation of food in Australia, it is about an unprecedented power shift from small growers supplying local markets to big farmers and agents.”
Read full article here.

One wonders where the hundreds of other producers in Australia sell their farm products. Thank goodness that Farmers Markets are on the increase. They at least give farmers an outlet for their fresh produce and customers a choice.

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Saving Australian farming

On January 31, 2012, in the nose, by pauline
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THIS year 2012 is The Australian Year of the Farmer and a dedicated web site has been set up so one can learn more about this not for profit, non political organisation. The Australian Year of the Farmer aims to reach out to every Australian

to involve and bring together rural and urban communities, schools, farming organisation, suppliers and the producers. There will be year-long program of events across the nation.
Australia’s farmers should be recognised and celebrated: for feeding the nation and for leading the world in farming techniques and innovation. Read more.
Save Australian Farming organisation’s web site suggests we break the habit of doing our weekly shop at one of the two big supermarkets. Grow our own vegetables and schedule a weekend visit to one of the many Farmers Markets that are springing up around Perth.

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Small changes make a difference

On January 19, 2012, in the nose, by pauline
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CAROLYN Steel, architect and author of Hungry City used to think about the city through its built environments, now she thinks about it through food. She wants us to to see cities that have food at their centre. For Steel this is one of the

most urgent tasks facing the potential 5 billion or 61 percent of people that will be living in cities by 2030.
‘Because we don’t see food’s influence, we leave it up to Coles and Woolworths and Tesco,’ says Steel. ‘We no longer value food.’. “Steel believes that this invisibility leads to unrealistic expectations of cheap food – and allows us to ignore the land and water degradation that result.
“80 percent of global trade in food now is controlled by just five multinational corporations. And if we look to the future, it’s an unsustainable diet.
Further information from Carolyn Steel’s “Hungry City” web site
Journalist Alan Saunders from ABC’s “By Design” poses the question “How can we change things? “Small changes make a difference, ‘sharing food, knowing where your food comes from and cooking it seasonally and locally. Listen to interview

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Supermarkets

On November 6, 2011, in the nose, by pauline
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ABC’s Hungry Beast presents an informative perspective on the power of the big two supermarkets. Watch video
Further information can be read on the viagra order online

/www.ethical.org.au/issues/?issue=16″>Ethical Consumers guide

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Small store succeeds

On October 27, 2011, in the nose, by pauline
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A fine example of a small store influencing how people think about food is found in Sam Mogannam,s Bi Rite store in San Francisco. Slow Food’s San Francisco Convivium interviews Mogannam on

film about the rise of the small store and peoples increasing interest in where their food comes from.
San Francisco Magazine notes, that ever since Mogannam took the reins from his father and uncle, sales have grown by $1 million every year. No wonder other retailers want to visit and see what all the fuss is about, especially in an economic time when it is not rare to hear about small businesses that are losing that kind of money each year. Bi-Rite’s sales have increased exponentially from $1.25 million in 1998 to $13.8 million in 2010.
Bi-Rite seems to be ahead of the curve on exceeding not only consumer demand for more locally produced, sustainable, fresh food, but consumers’ desires to learn about where that food comes from and how it is produced. Read more

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Fair deal for farmers

On September 11, 2011, in reluctant gardener, by pauline
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REPORTED in the “Weekly Times” that Australian farmers were the lowest paid in the world. Senators Bob Katter and Nick Xenophon, have teamed up to force the ma

jor supermarket chains to show how much they pay farmers for fresh produce by introducing a legislation in both Houses of Parliament.
The Farm Gate Pricing Bill will be introduced in September. Read further

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The Stop

On April 6, 2011, in the nose, by pauline
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THE Stop, the Canadian Foodbank international success story, has set its sights on revamping Canada’s relationship with food. Increasingly over the past years it has help to reduce peoples reliance on the industrial food system and teach them how to

reconnect with real food, especially those who can least afford it. The Stop’s Toronto facilities, includes a greenhouse, farmers’ market and kitchen where elementary students learn to cook. Read the full article in the Globe and Mail and and more at The Stop’s web site.

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Warning from the future

On March 31, 2011, in the nose, by pauline
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GUARDIAN reporter Tony Naylor writes a delightful bite of culinary journalism with a depressing view into the future. Sainsbury has chosen to trial its “Fresh Kitchen”, a takeway offering hot and cold food which is predicted to be nationwide soon. Na

ylor visiting the kitchen reports that it is cheaply utilitarian in design, feels like a cross between Gregg’s, McDonalds and an emergency field kitchen. It is loud, brightly lit, packed with people, the counter staff and cashiers have been trained to process each sale in seconds. “They shout for the next customer, shout out the orders. Shout them out again. Basically there is a lot of shouting”.
“But what of the quality? Swerving a £3.99 hot meat baguette (the pork and beef on the counter looked dry and shrivelled) I opted, instead, for lasagne, one of several, “hot meals, freshly cooked here today” It arrived at the authentic solar temperature, pallid and glutinous lasagne sheets, minced beef like curiously spongy grit.It came with an undressed side ‘salad’ of lettuce leaves and, apart from the thin layer of cheese on top, it tasted of almost nothing. It made me, as much as food ever can do, angry” Read Naylor’s full story written while doing research into London’s budget eating places

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