IN the peak of stone fruit season, a Woorinen farmer has hit out at a system which charges customers big bucks at the till but deposits none in the pockets of local growers.
After third-generation stone fruit grower Geoff Butler walked into a local supermarket and saw apricots being sold for $9.50 per kilo, when he was getting $2.50 for the same amount, he decided to speak out.
He told The Guardian local consumers who bought from the commercial supermarkets were paying through the nose for poor quality fruit and called for political action into the discrepancy between farm and supermarket prices.
“It’s worse than the stuff I would throw out,” he said of some of the produce being sold here in Swan Hill.
“It’s all about profit. [Customers] are paying too much, supermarkets are charging too much and we’re [the farmers] not making enough.
For more on this story, pick up a copy of Friday’s Guardian (November 27).
