How much do fruit and vegetable wholesalers pay in rent nationwide?

The amount fresh produce wholesalers pay at major central markets along the east coast remains at the heart of an ongoing dispute with a major market authority.

Fresh produce wholesalers at Melbourne’s major fruit and vegetable market say they are paying over $100 per square metre more for their rental sites compared to other markets along the east coast.

Wholesalers and the Melbourne Market Authority have reached a stalemate on rental negotiations, after the market authority announced plans to raise rents by 100 per cent over 10 years, with some growers now contemplating freighting stock interstate to make a better return on their product.

The Weekly Times contacted the Brisbane Market, Sydney Market, and the Melbourne Market for comparable rent prices.

Wholesale member group Fresh State, in conversation with members, says the central market rate per square metre, excluding GST, at the Melbourne Market is between $485 to $503, excluding outgoing costs.

While the Sydney Market declined to comment, Fresh Fellas wholesaler at the market Heath McInerney said rent for his approximately 192sq m site was $350/sqm, a figure which included most outgoings.

The Brisbane Market gross rental rate is $317/sqm, excluding GST.

The Melbourne Market Authority did not respond directly to the figures asserted by Fresh State, but an MMA spokesperson said the Valuer General Victoria had determined the store premises subject to the rental review as “significantly undervalued, based on a valuation methodology agreed upon by Fresh State”.

“Making direct meaningful comparisons with other central markets is impossible,” the spokesperson said.

Wholesalers at the Melbourne Market have been pushing back against a rental price hike proposal that would see their rent increase 100 per cent in the next decade.

“The MMA has extended multiple invitations to Fresh State and the businesses they represent for good-faith negotiations, providing two extensions on the deadline to accommodate discussions. Despite this, meaningful engagement has yet to occur.”

Fresh State chief executive Jason Cooper said “nobody can trust one word the MMA says”.

“They have been fact-checked on rents and caught out again,” Mr Cooper said.

Brisbane Markets Limited managing director and chief executive Andrew Young said while comparing markets can be difficult, “having commercially competitive rental rates is obviously an important part of maintaining the ongoing relevance of the markets”.

Mr McInerney said he had been a tenant of Sydney Market since 1990, including when it was privatised in the late 1990s.

“It was legislated back then that the state government would provide a fair and equitable trading platform for wholesalers, thus allowing growers around Australia to have a reasonable return on their products,” Mr McInerney said.

“That charter has been the same, and carried through. We’re all shareholders, and all the market’s income comes from its shareholders. The idea is to keep our trading platform as cheap as possible, but you’ve got to make money to upkeep the site.”

Mr McInerney said the past five years had been incredibly disruptive, with growers bearing the brunt of input costs and other pressures.

“The poor old farmer bears every costs. Every time there’s a rise in agriculture, whether it’s the cost for fertiliser, fuel for transport … every company passes that cost on and it’s the grower who bears that.”