Jamie Oliver to tackle Woolworths over vegie levy

JAMIE Oliver has agreed to talk with Woolworths about his concerns over its recent ‘Jamie’s Garden’ campaign.

Jamie Oliver has pledged to raise the issue of a produce levy with Woolworths.

BRITISH celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has agreed to talk with Woolworths executives about his concerns over its recent fresh produce campaign, “Jamie’s Garden”, being funded by struggling Australian vegetable growers.

Oliver told Richard Mul­cahy, chief executive of grower org­anisation AUSVEG, that he could not do much about Woolworths’ move to impose a “voluntary levy” of 40c a crate or box of vegetables sold on growers to pay for the six-week campaign, as he is just an “employee” of the supermarket giant.

But he pledged to raise the issue with Woolworths after strong negative publicity about the Jamie Oliver Woolworths campaign on social media and Twitter by an outraged Australian public during the past fortnight.

AUSVEG maintains the special campaign levy, while nominally voluntary, is unfair, unscrupulous and amounts to bullying of small growers worried about losing orders from such a dominant retailer.

It wants the 50 per cent of growers who have paid the “Jamie Oliver” levy from fear of retribution if they didn’t — including one large Woolworths supplier who has forked out $300,000 — to get their money back.

“I’ve never seen such a public outcry and groundswell of support for Australian growers before,” Mr Mulcahy told yesterday’s AUSVEG conference in Cairns.

“We will continue to fight Woolworths, and Coles if necessary, over business standards and behaviour that I think were appalling; this pressure on growers (by the two supermarkets) must end.”

Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce told the conference that he supported a mandatory code of conduct binding all retailers, including Coles and Woolworths, to transparent pricing and purchasing polices, and proper behaviour.

“The (two big) supermarkets tell me that they believe signing (their current) voluntary code of conduct is no different to having a mandatory (government) code,” Mr Joyce said.

“But I say we all should be on the same running sheet; my personal desire is to make (the code) mandatory to all in the industry.”

Independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon told the convention the only way to change the 80 per cent market dominance of the Coles and Woolworths supermarkets was to bring in new laws allowing courts to order a company break-up if retailers were found to have abused their market power.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission launched unprecedented proceedings against Coles in the Federal Court in May accusing it of “unconscionable conduct” and overbearing tactics towards 200 smaller suppliers and growers, after a three-year investigation.