Eltham Power Outage

Recently, a Woolworths supermarket in Eltham experienced a power outage of about 3-4 hours.

Once the power came back on, the store was seen bagging up shelves and shelves of frozen food, including fruit and veg to throw in the bin.

Many in the community wondered:

Don’t they have back up generators?

Isn’t there some way this food can be salvaged to avoid this massive food waste?

And this comes right at the time that we’ve seen extreme heatwaves and tropical cyclones across our country.

The climate crisis is here and we all need to be prepared.

But it’s just cheaper and easier for the company to just throw the whole lot out and claim it on their insurance.

Especially when it’s their suppliers who bear the brunt of the getting new stock to the shelves.

The supermarket duopoly, who make billions of dollars every year, are crying poor.

First, they said they can’t afford to pay their essential workers penalty rates.

Now they’re saying they can’t even afford to keep their shelves stocked.

Coles have said that suppliers will need to pay their own freight costs.

This will hit smaller suppliers hardest, the small businesses and farmers. 

These are people that are already struggling with rising costs, and now Coles is forcing them to pay for freight just to keep their products on shelves.

@aivgoesgreen

First, the supermarkets have tried to stop paying their workers penalty rates. Now, they’re trying to make their suppliers pay for their own operating costs. Enough is enough. Smash the duopoly.

♬ original sound – Aiv Puglielli MP – Aiv Puglielli MP

The duopoly, who jointly make up more than half of Australia’s grocery market, would say passing the buck on their operating costs is just ‘good business’.

Just like how its ‘good business’ to throw out fresh produce that doesn’t meet their aesthetic standards

‘Carrots must be perfectly triangular and straight’, god forbid a curvy carrot.

And ‘bananas must be small enough to be snackable’, just think of the children, trying to eat a banana that’s a whole 30cm long.

Woolworths has committed to zero food waste to landfill by 2025.

Makes you wonder how the masses of food waste they sent to the tip works for these plans?

We’re already feeling the effects of the climate crisis,

I mean we’ve just had heatwaves and bushfires on one side of the country while a cyclone and flooding raged on the other.

Power outages are going to become more common.

It’s going to become harder to grow fresh produce and keep shelves stocked year round.

We can’t afford to be frivolously wasting food in this way.

@aivgoesgreen

Saw this one recently, here’s my 2 cents on it. We’re going to see more disruptions like this if we continue to underfund our community climate resilience programs. Climate disasters shouldn’t cost the community. The government needs to step up.

♬ original sound – Aiv Puglielli MP – Aiv Puglielli MP

These mega rich companies need to be thinking about back ups to make sure food remains on the shelves.

The government needs to invest in and mandate climate resilience and adaptability programs.

To stop the food that farmers work hard to grow and people need from being needlessly wasted.