Coles defends dairy stance PrintIncrease Text SizeDecrease Text Size02 Oct, 2013 04:00 AMCARLENE DOWIE Coles CEO Ian McLeod says Coles CEO Ian McLeod says "productivity in Australia more generally has got to improve". COLES chief executive officer Ian McLeod has defended his company’s aggressive public relations campaign against dairy farmer organisations. In an interview on SBS TV’s The Observer Effect screened on Sunday night, Mr McLeod was confronted with statements made by Coles general manager of corporate affairs, Robert Hadler, including that the supermarket chain used “every PR tactic possible to neutralise the noise” around $1 a litre milk. On Monday, Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF) condemned the views expressed in Mr Hadler’s presentation to the Centre for Corporate Public Affairs (CCPA) in June that also said the “silent majority was demanding lower prices” but the “vocal minority don’t like it and campaign against it”. ADF president Noel Campbell said: “To say this document is dripping with cynicism would be a major understatement”. Sentiments expressed in the case study also included “there was the inevitable farmer protest”, “grandstanding agri-politicians” and “rural and regional noise was loudest”. Mr Campbell said he was particularly disappointed Coles would allow their brand name to be associated with such views, at a time when dairyfarmers supplying from regions influenced by domestic price issues, were severely affected by current farmgate milk prices. “By maintaining unsustainable supermarket branded milk pricing, Coles is taking so much money out of the value chain as to make dairy production in many areas unsustainable,” he said. “Not only have farmers’ incomes dropped in Queensland, Western Australia and northern New South Wales but processors have said that milk priced at $1 per litre cannot give a fair return to anyone in the value chain.” Mr Campbell said Coles’ indifference to the plight of dairy farmers was one of a number of compelling reasons why ADF was advocating strongly for a mandatory supermarket code of conduct. But Mr McLeod defended the campaign and its low milk price.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 02:30:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015