THERE’S a phenomena currently sweeping supermarkets - fridge photos featuring empty racks in the dairy section of Coles and Woolworths stores are popping up on Facebook pages around Australia, including Macksville.
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These understocked fridges are the result of consumers taking action to support branded dairy products. A ‘purchasing protest’ has been spurred by the unfolding dairy crisis which is seeing farm gate prices for milk slashed.
En-masse consumers are turning their backs on $1 per litre milk, usually supermarket-owned brands, and are instead buying a local or more expensive alternative. Brands of milk, such as Norco, have vanished from supermarket shelves which remain unstocked.
Norco Cooperative Limited Chairman Greg McNamara said the empty shelves at supermarkets would be causing supermarkets to rethink their ordering processes.
“As a result of the dairy crisis we’re seeing consumers move to buying branded milk products, but they’re buying less of them,” Mr McNamara told the Guardian.
“It’s positive for the brands, but it’s also important to maintain supply… dairy farmers need to sell the same amount of milk on an ongoing basis.”
Ussher-Townley Dairy farm manager Peter Townley isn’t affected by the price wars crippling dairy farmers in Victoria but thinks that what the major supermarkets are doing to the industry is wrong.
“There is no way a farmer can produce milk, transport it to the factory, bottle it, homogenise and pasteurise it, and get it back to the supermarket for $1 a litre,” Mr Tonwley told the Guardian.
“We produce over 2.6 million litres of milk a year, so even a one cent difference to the price you get has a huge impact.”
The crisis began unfolding after milk processors Murray Goulburn and Fonterra decided to reduce farm milk prices for the 2015-16 season. A move that could see many dairy farmers hit the wall and sell-off properties in order to repay debts that their milk prices will not cover.
Norco Cooperative is not changing its contract price for milk this financial year which is around 57 cents per litre (to the farmer).
Rather than see dairy farmers lose their homes and livelihoods, Australians are taking their support to the checkout.
Social media campaigns such as ‘Support Dairy Farmers’ encourage people to buy branded dairy products as way of keeping prices fair for Aussie farmers.
The ‘Dairy farmers need your help please’ Facebook page has already earned more than 50,000 followers suggesting that the dairy crisis is an issue consumers take seriously.