Buying Australian Made & Grown

Although there have been a lot of articles written about buying Australian Made, we seem to be losing the battle. Finding products, especially groceries that are manufactured locally, that is the hardest thing. I find that many of the Australian made products are gradually (I use that term loosely) disappearing from the shelves of the Coles and Woolworths stores, and all we have left the multinational produced products, Kraft, Cadbury, Continental etc.

The Major chains through their buying prowess are able to import Fruit & Vegetables. Why? Personally I prefer Australian Fruit and vegetables; at least I know they are governed by reasonable standards health wise. And Seafood, well there is a story in itself. At least with Aussie seafood, I know that they have been caught in effluent free waters, can’t say too much about the imported rubbish from overseas.

I was pleased to hear that a local manufacturer from Ingham in North Queensland, Casa’s Continental, has started to sell their products in Ritchie’s IGA around Brisbane from the end of the month, hopefully these people will get more of their products into IGA’s through the state as the IGA chain seems to be the only one that favours Australian Made Products.

Dick Smith has the right approach to this supporting Australian made product. Myself, if there are two items of the same product, I will buy the Aussie one over the one from overseas, at least my money stops here.

It is about time that we as Consumers voiced our opinion at the till, buy local, ask for locally produced products at the supermarkets, send them emails, start telling them what we want instead of the other way around where they dictate their choice to us, exert our buying power and hopefully they will wake up to what we as consumers want.