I was listening to the post Yasi conversation on the ABC this morning and a lady said that the price of bananas had gone from $2 per kg to $7, overnight, in her local (read big 2) supermarket. Now these bananas would have been sourced and paid for well before the cyclone. The big 2 supermarkets will just source their bananas from NSW, ignore the plight of their former suppliers in the north and do very well out of this disaster thank you. Deja Vu all over again...... cheers
-- Edited by petengail on Friday 4th of February 2011 06:17:01 PM
robell said
05:10 PM Feb 4, 2011
stinks, dont it
Smokeydk said
07:42 PM Feb 4, 2011
LOL.its been $7 a kg here at Woolies for weeks..theres talk of it going to $13kg by weekend
Helena said
08:12 PM Feb 4, 2011
Guess who won't be having banana's on the menu Helena.
Happywanderer said
08:15 PM Feb 4, 2011
I've only been paying 2 - 2.50 a kilo here in Echuca smokey. Why so dear in SA.
The same thing that happened in the Brisbane floods. Some bakeries started charging 10.00 a loaf of bread. Its called profiteering peteandgail.
Hylda&Jon said
10:11 PM Feb 4, 2011
I lived in Woolgoolga on the mid north coast of NSW (which, with Coffs Harbour, is the centre for the NSW banana growing industry.) for 8 years up till 2 years ago & a very good friend of mine is one of the many indians who owns plantations there.
I was just in touch with him & he told me the prices of bananas he sells has gone up from $12 a case up to $45 kilo a case already & he is expecting it to go to $65 any day now.
After the 2006 cyclone in NQ his carton prices peaked at about $145 a case so he is expecting at least that price sooner or later.
Last time the earnings he got helped him buy a house, truck & tractor. Although I felt very sad for the people up north I felt happy for him because he could finally move his family of 3 kids out of the 2 bedroom unit they had been renting for the last 5 years.
Cheers Jon
milo said
10:18 PM Feb 4, 2011
what about the $2.00 milk now from wollies? wont that hurt the farmers?
tonyd said
11:15 PM Feb 4, 2011
Anyone attempting to charge $10 for a loaf of bread should be pulled across the counter by his/her shirt collar and punched into insensibility.
And now, God help us, there are reports of looters in the rubble of the cyclone. A bullet in the head is the obvious answer, although far too merciful for these bottom-feeding scum.
Saw on TV a sign scrawled on a destroyed house in (I think) Cardwell, which said "battered but not beaten."
Keep your spirits up, North Queenslanders!
Cheers, Tony
brickies said
12:00 AM Feb 5, 2011
$ 10 for a loaf of bread was investigated and proved to be a facebook false story the shop that were suppose to be doing it had not had bread for days to sell anyway good story but not for the people who were wrongly deframed
sandsmere said
07:18 AM Feb 5, 2011
Well Brickies , I can tell you that the $10 a loaf for bread may have been a furphy , but my son was asked for $8 for a loaf at a shop during the Brisbane floods . Didn't pay it of course , but some did .
$10 or $8 for a loaf of bread . . . . . . they still should be run out of town .
As for bananas , they were around $20 / kilo for months after cyclone Larry , so we can expect at least that for a few months now .
ibbo said
07:30 AM Feb 5, 2011
Smokeydk wrote:
LOL.its been $7 a kg here at Woolies for weeks..theres talk of it going to $13kg by weekend
-- Edited by ibbo on Saturday 5th of February 2011 07:32:05 AM
jimricho said
07:59 AM Feb 5, 2011
Hylda&Jon wrote:
I lived in Woolgoolga on the mid north coast of NSW (which, with Coffs Harbour, is the centre for the NSW banana growing industry.) for 8 years up till 2 years ago & a very good friend of mine is one of the many indians who owns plantations there.
I was just in touch with him & he told me the prices of bananas he sells has gone up from $12 a case up to $45 kilo a case already & he is expecting it to go to $65 any day now.
After the 2006 cyclone in NQ his carton prices peaked at about $145 a case so he is expecting at least that price sooner or later.
Last time the earnings he got helped him buy a house, truck & tractor. Although I felt very sad for the people up north I felt happy for him because he could finally move his family of 3 kids out of the 2 bedroom unit they had been renting for the last 5 years.
Cheers Jon
Yes, there's two sides to the story.
When there's a glut these same farmers have to take a price less than their production costs or sometimes destroy their crop to cut their losses. I can live without bananas if they get too expensive.
_wombat_ said
08:36 AM Feb 5, 2011
If everbody and I do mean everybody did not buy bananas, then the shops would have to drop prices or be left with them on the shelf.
no banabas in this house
brickies said
09:33 AM Feb 5, 2011
Wombat you hit the nail on the head they are only worth what people want to pay for them , if people stop buying the price will fall
Gerty Dancer said
09:47 AM Feb 5, 2011
I was really pleased to hear that those farmers who are able to supply at least get a proper ptice for their produce. I've heard stories that the big2 have their growers under contract, and the price remained the same no matter whether theres a shortage or not.
The growers/farmers are getting less in real terms now than 20 years ago for their produce, but the supermarkets are still increasing prices. Yes I know they have costs, and wages to pay etc, but so do producers.
dolphinrider said
12:17 PM Feb 5, 2011
I'm with you Helena.
Happywanderer said
12:24 PM Feb 5, 2011
I did't read the bread story on facebook brickies, I saw it on the news and they named and showed the shop doing it. That was during the Brisbane floods, can only go by what is said. If not true why haven't they been on and denied it. I think there may have been more than one shop charging the high prices as they baked their own and no one else had any to sell.
Happywanderer said
12:33 PM Feb 5, 2011
I will still buy bananas, will just have half a day instead of one whole one unless they get far too expensive.
The doctor tells you to eat healthy to stay well and keep cholestoral down and then the prices go up and we have to eat crap that is unhealthy for us like white bread etc.
Well, I won't do it anymore, I need to live longer than my long gone generations who lived on bread and dripping and all died at an early age.
So I will buy Coles 2.00 trim milk. I will buy bananas and eat less per day rather than none at all.
I will buy at Aldi even though they are a foreign owned company if they have cheaper fruit and veges.
I will live longer than my own parents who had no idea what a healthy diet meant, being farming people lived on red meat, lots of fat etc etc etc. And didn't get proper medical advice when they should.
ken thomas said
01:06 PM Feb 5, 2011
I paid $1.49 for ripe banana's in Woolies Echuca on thurs and on friday the same ripe banana's were $ 5.59 We are screwed no matter what we do unless people power comes into force and we refuse to shop at the big 2 Ken
lilly31 said
01:39 PM Feb 5, 2011
Well i will still buy banana's ... But only australian ones and if we all do that hopefully we wont start to import them ....We all surived the last time when cyclone larry wipe out most of the aussie bananas ... I be like Happy Wanderer i have half instead of a full one... but when we look at it even at $20.00 per kg they still wont cost more per banana than a mars bar or a coffee and most of us buy them with worrying about the price ..
brickies said
04:50 PM Feb 5, 2011
Happywanderer I live in Ipswich this story has had a lot of attention in the local paper 5 claims were made after it was reported on facebook the a list of storekeepers were selling bread and milk at inflated prices this was investigated by queensland fair trading body and found that the stores were out of bread and milk from lunch time on the day before the flood and did not get bread and milk until the friday of that week the local mayor had a large write up in the local paper about this has the stress that unfairly put on these honest store keepers , The tv station already had their good story and don't want to ruin their great story forget about the people who got hurt by mischief , they didn't tell the world an asian bakery selling bread for a $1 a loaf
Happywanderer said
04:58 PM Feb 5, 2011
And we don't get the rest of the story told in the news. I remember the news reporter standing in front of the shop giving out that first story. They should be made to retract and apologize and make it as big a news story as the first part was.
jimricho said
05:10 PM Feb 5, 2011
There are too many stories based on hearsay, urban myth, false information and sometimes malicious untruths that "do the rounds" in emails, gossip, Facebook, etc. and even in "tabloid" mainstream media. Unfortunately from time to time some of these appear on this forum.
Happywanderer said
05:14 PM Feb 5, 2011
Well, I honestly believed it had happened and had no reason not to. If no one corrects their first story it is very difficult to believe anything different.
My belief was that it was a bakery who baked their own bread, not a milk bar just selling it, but there you go it was all lies anyway.
jimricho said
05:25 PM Feb 5, 2011
Many of these stories come from people we know and trust and are passed on in good faith, but unfortunately the story has passed through that many "hands" that the contents have become "unreliable" long before reaching those people.
On a lighter note...
"Deja vu all over again"...... Is that a tautology???
-- Edited by jimricho on Saturday 5th of February 2011 05:31:11 PM
brickies said
05:39 PM Feb 5, 2011
To the Queensland Police credit they have set up a Facebook page to inform the general public of what is happening this happen in the recent floods an Yasi . They would inform us of the myth that were doing the rounds and were very honest with information yet national media would still run their story without letting the truth yet in the way of a good story .
Sheba said
06:16 PM Feb 5, 2011
I thought "Profiteering" was illegal. We've had people on both Radio and TV within the last 48 hours telling us the price should not go up for 2 or 3 weeks yet, as there is still a reasonable Stockpile of Pre-Cyclone Bananas.
Glad I don't have their Karma.
Cheers, Sheba
jimricho said
06:31 PM Feb 5, 2011
"Profiteering" (whatever that means) is not illegal unless it involves cartel (price collusion) behaviour. Predatory pricing is.
Unlike other commodities bananas cannot be imported to make up a supply shortfall due to strict quarantine laws. This means the laws of supply and demand will determine the price. This is in effect a form of rationing. The alternative is some other form of rationing that would involve unacceptable government and bureaucratic interference in the workings of a free market.
jimricho said
06:38 PM Feb 5, 2011
Happywanderer wrote:
Some bakeries started charging 10.00 a loaf of bread.
Have to take Queen Marie-Antoinette's advice and eat cake!
Sheba said
07:07 PM Feb 5, 2011
My mistake Jim. I should have said Predatory Pricing. It still stinks, whatever it's called.
-- Edited by petengail on Friday 4th of February 2011 06:17:01 PM
I was just in touch with him & he told me the prices of bananas he sells has gone up from $12 a case up to $45 kilo a case already & he is expecting it to go to $65 any day now.
After the 2006 cyclone in NQ his carton prices peaked at about $145 a case so he is expecting at least that price sooner or later.
Last time the earnings he got helped him buy a house, truck & tractor. Although I felt very sad for the people up north I felt happy for him because he could finally move his family of 3 kids out of the 2 bedroom unit they had been renting for the last 5 years.
Cheers
Jon
Didn't pay it of course , but some did .
$10 or $8 for a loaf of bread . . . . . . they still should be run out of town .
As for bananas , they were around $20 / kilo for months after cyclone Larry , so we can expect at least that for a few months now .
-- Edited by ibbo on Saturday 5th of February 2011 07:32:05 AM
When there's a glut these same farmers have to take a price less than their production costs or sometimes destroy their crop to cut their losses. I can live without bananas if they get too expensive.
We are screwed no matter what we do unless people power comes into force and we refuse to shop at the big 2
Ken
On a lighter note...
"Deja vu all over again"...... Is that a tautology???
-- Edited by jimricho on Saturday 5th of February 2011 05:31:11 PM
I thought "Profiteering" was illegal. We've had people on both Radio and TV within the last 48 hours telling us the price should not go up for 2 or 3 weeks yet, as there is still a reasonable Stockpile of Pre-Cyclone Bananas.
Glad I don't have their Karma.
Cheers,
Sheba
Cheers,
Sheba.