Flower growers give country-of-origin label laws a spray

FROM next month, Australians will be able to read the packaging to check what country the meat in their beef pie is from. But when buying a bunch of flowers, they can only guess.

Clear message: Michael Allen from Bloomin’ Koomen in Pakenham with glasshouse-grown roses that are sold with an Australian Grown logo on the packaging. Picture: Dannika Bonser

FROM next month, Australians will be able to read the packaging to check what country the meat in their beef pie is from. But when buying a bunch of flowers, they can only guess whether their roses have been flown 13,500km from Ecuador, or been trucked from Pakenham.

And the nation’s flower industry is crying foul.

A new country-of-origin labelling scheme comes into effect on July 1 requiring food products to specify whether they were made in Australia, and the percentage of Australian ingredients used to make them.

But Australian Flower Council secretary Shane Holborn said consumers should also be privy to the origin of the flowers they buy as local growers struggle to compete with cheap foreign imports.

The industry says that because fresh cut flowers are not a manufactured product and are sold in supermarkets and fresh produce markets, they should have a similar arrangement to the “fresh produce category” under the mandatory food labelling system.

But the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science has knocked back Mr Holborn’s requests to discuss labelling. It said the country-of-origin labelling reforms were largely driven by demand from consumers for clearer and more specific origin information on food products.

It said submissions on labelling requirements for non-food products were considered at the time of developing the CoOL reforms, but changes were deemed to require further consideration.

Inclusion of cut flowers and foliage will not be considered until the new labelling rules are reviewed in 2020-21.

But not all industry players are keen on the idea. Many retailers are concerned that country-of-origin labelling could see Australian-grown flower purchases grow at the expensive of imported flowers that come with much juicer profit margins.

Pakenham rose grower Michael Allen, of Bloomin’ Koomen, sells his flowers with “Australian grown” printed on the packaging. But he said many florists removed the sleeves.

Mr Allen said while many florists say they were in favour of country-of-origin labelling on flowers, they were also fiercely protective of their margins.

“It’s a bit of a contradiction; they want to make money and imported flowers are a lot cheaper,” Mr Allen said. Bloomin’ Koomen’s wholesale price varies between $12 and $16, compared to Kenyan roses that wholesale for about $8.

Australia imported $66.8 million worth of fresh cut flowers in 2016-17, compared to $38.6 million four years ago.