Australia’s peak dairy farming body, Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF), has told a Senate Committee inquiry that Australian dairy farmers are being pushed out of business by supermarkets retailing milk at “unsustainable” prices. The ADF was addressing the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into the impacts of supermarket price decisions on the dairy industry. The inquiry met the ADF representatives on Thursday 6 October 2011. ADF President Chris Griffin said that in the last eight months,... ...Read more »

The ‘Farm Gate to Plate’ Bill proposed by Federal Independents Bob Katter MHR and Senator Nick Xenophon has been slammed by the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) which says that the costs of compliance would defeat its purpose.    The Bill (formally referred to as the Constitutional Corporations (Farm Gate to Plate) Bill 2011), as previously reported by Australian Food News, would require grocery retailers to display the farm gate price of fresh fruit and vegetables next to the retail... ...Read more »

Australia’s competition watchdog has reportedly called for the investigation into milk pricing to be widened to include the country’s biggest milk processors as well as retailers.The news comes in the midst of a Senate inquiry into the Australian dairy sector and follows claims from farming representatives that “government inaction” has permitted the country’s largest supermarkets – Coles and Woolworths Ltd – to abuse their market power. However, according... ...Read more »

Consumer advocacy group CHOICE says implications of the supermarkets’ milk pricing battle should be seen in the wider frame of competition issues in the grocery sector and the need for a National Food Policy, and has called for a national food policy and supermarket ombudsman to be established. The consumer group, in a submission to the Senate Economics Committee Inquiry into the milk discount issue, said discounted prices in the short-term may have negative consequences further down the track. CHOICE... ...Read more »

Both of Australia’s major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, have slashed prices on their own-brand milk offerings, in a move which they claim will not affect farmgate prices for their milk suppliers, but which has nevertheless caused consternation throughout the dairy industry. Coles led the move when it reduced the price of a 2 litre bottle of own-brand milk by 47c to just $2 – which was immediately matched by its competitor, Woolworth’s – in a ‘loss leader’... ...Read more »

Opposition Senators expressed concerms over the relaxation of Beef imports into Australia during a Senate Inquiry on Tuesday. Liberal Senator and Farmer Bill Heffernan raised his concern that Australian domestic beef producers were held to a stricter standard than foreign imports “These fellows today are telling Australia’s beef growers that they are going to accept a lesser standard than they have imposed on Australia,” he told the Inquiry yesterday. He also had fears that beef imports... ...Read more »

The Federal Government has been told to learn from an “episode of waste and mismanagement” in reference to the GroceryChoice debacle, while the role of the ACCC has come under fire. A leading retail representative has also been criticised in a Senate Inquiry report, with calls for an investigation into a possible breach of the Trade Practices Act. The Inquiry had been launched to look at the handling of the price monitoring website GroceryChoice, an election promise of the Rudd Government. The... ...Read more »

The Senate Economics Committee is set to investigate contracts between the major supermarkets and dairy group National Foods as part of their analysis of pricing in the dairy industry. Earlier this month the Committee was asked to determine whether farmers were being hard done by in response to uproar following price cuts – largely focusing on price reductions by National Foods in Tasmania. Committee member, Tasmanian Senator Richard Colbeck, has told the ABC that the investigation will now... ...Read more »

A Senate committee is set to look into the market power of leading dairy players in Australia to determine whether farmers are being short changed. Concerns have been raised about whether Australian dairy farmers are getting a fair deal, with the issues coming to a head in Tasmania over the past couple of weeks amid allegations that National Foods are using their bargaining power in the state to force prices below fair value. The inquiry, to be carried out by the Economic Reference Committee, has... ...Read more »

The Federal Government will be held to account for the failed attempt to set up a successful grocery price monitoring website. A Senate vote on Wednesday saw the Federal Opposition receive their wish for a Senate inquiry into the failed GroceryChoice website, which was scrapped in June just days before the revamped version was set to go live. The Rudd Government spent millions on the election promise but then decided it would be too difficult to deliver a site that would be useful for consumers,... ...Read more »