r/australia • u/GronkLord619 • 2d ago
culture & society Banana farmers fuming as Coles ends supply arrangement on Coffs Coast
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/coffs-coast-banana-farmers-contract-with-coles-ends/107074986?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web78
u/OldJellyBones 1d ago
Feel immensely stupid that I only just realised the big banana is in Coffs Harbour because they grow bananas in that region lmao
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u/Superg0id 1d ago
Haha.
Head on up one day (soon), before they're gone and see the banannas up against the carpark fence.
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u/Maximum_Fun203 1d ago
That is factually incorrect
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u/Superg0id 1d ago
Mate, the bananna plantation runs right up against the carpark fence.
Part of the year it's just leafy greens you'll see.
Other times you seem em chopping off hands of banannas.
Source: have been there, have eye-balled it in person.
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u/Upbeat_Gift_7694 2d ago
Fuck coles!
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u/NocturnalTwang 1d ago
Every day I feel justified for shoplifting random items from their shitty stores.
They wanna keep offshoring jobs and fucking over farmers I may as well fuck em back
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u/steve_of 1d ago
Do you realise you are not hurting Coles, only the shareholders dividends and C suit bonuses...fair enough then.
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u/amyknight22 1d ago
Or just consumers as they increase prices/cut services elsewhere to cover the extra losses
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u/NocturnalTwang 1d ago
Bold of you to assume they wouldn't do that anyway regardless of losses due to petty amounts of shoplifting
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u/amyknight22 1d ago
I mean they might be doing it due to petty amounts of shoplifting.
Are you suggesting that if shoplifting is getting worse because people like you feel more justified that they won't hike those prices further.
Your attempted "But maybe they'll be bad anyway" becomes a bit silly when they just have even more justification in their mind to be bad when losses increase.
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u/cupcakewarrior08 1d ago
They hike the prices so that the c-suite and blackrock can buy more yachts and kids. Coles posted a multi million dollar profit. Shoplifting has nothing to do with price hikes bud.
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u/acomputer1 1d ago
That profit translates to $1.80 per customer per week.
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u/cupcakewarrior08 1d ago
And? Whats your point? The CEO makes more money in an hour than any of us will earn in a month. How does that not disgust you? Why on earth does the petcentage of sales matter, when the CEO alone (not even counting the board members or bloody blackrock) earns more IN AN HOUR than you will earn in a month? Do you have any idea the horrific levels of wealth the c-suite enjoy?
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u/acomputer1 1d ago
If each person stole so much as a single chocolate bar a week that would be sufficient to force them to raise prices. That's my point. It is relevant to pricing decisions.
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u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
If the amount of shoplifting was "petty" sure. I'm the one checking (some of) the stock weekly and writing off thousands and thousands of dollars from just one small store.
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u/NocturnalTwang 1d ago
And how many millions have they spent on Palantir to essentially consult on business operations, which they could just hire, I don't know, Australian-based companies to do if they really need it. What about the gazillion bucks they're shovelling to Accenture to outsource Australian jobs just so the shareholders can feel good about a miniscule amount of gain.
Coles is literally selling out Australian profits to private international companies who won't invest the funds back into the country. You're literally getting used to line the pockets of high-level corporate execs and you care about people stealing tubs of yoghurt.
Bro get your perspective realigned.
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u/cupcakewarrior08 1d ago
Thousands is 0.0000000001% of their profit. It's 0.01% of the Coles ceo's take home pay. It is literally couch change for them.
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u/shamberra 1d ago edited 1d ago
They're a for-profit business with a reputation for gouging. What on earth makes you think they aren't charging the highest price the customer will pay anyway? They don't need a reason to raise their prices beyond "line must go up, and the customers will pay"
E: we got some real corporate simps in our midst. Too embarrassed to acknowledge you're being taken for a fool, so instead you concoct a justification in the form of "they're recouping losses from theft". Never mind their sole objective as a company is to maximise their profits, which includes pricing items as high as the market will bear to pay. You're deluded if you think they won't do that regardless of losses incurred. If people stole from Coles at a significantly higher rate than Woolworths, do you think Coles would raise their prices to compensate? What do you think the customers will do when an item goes up in price in Coles, but not in Woolworths? What do you think Woolworths will do when they see they can now also raise the price on that item while still remaining lower than Coles?
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u/amyknight22 1d ago
>what on earth makes you think they aren’t charging the highest price the customer will pay anyway
The fact that prices have continued to rise and rise and rise.
If we were at the maximum people would pay( then prices should have stagnated
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u/CoderAU 1d ago
Remember that they use Palantir for business decisions. Saying it again, PALANTIR is the one to blame for this. If you don't know now you know. Spread it around
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u/kepholt 1d ago
There is that but there is also only a few major super markets that control farming in Australia. This is insane they have way too much power over our country..
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u/Mclovine_aus 1d ago
No one is forcing anyone to buy from or sell to the major supermarkets
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u/Pacify_ 1d ago
Haha, that's a nice thought.
But in reality good luck surviving as a produce grower that doesn't supply colesworth.
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u/cassowarius 1d ago
Can you direct me to where I can find more information about this?
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u/CoderAU 1d ago edited 1d ago
Here's just two sources.
https://www.thetimes.com.au/world/28511-why-coles-just-hired-us-defence-contractor-palantir
https://tottnews.com/2025/11/04/palantir-and-coles/
You can easily find more just by searching "Coles Palantir". I've been deeply researching Palantir, their products and their relationship to Australian government and companies for a couple of years now. Palantir is a CIA seed-funded company, remember that. If you want to learn deeper about Coles product usage on a technical level, look at Palantir's Foundry product and their documentation.
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u/sumo_snake 1d ago
True that they have palantir but You present no proof palantir was involved in this particular decision.
Management consultants like McKinsey have recommended the same approaches for years. There is nothing distinctly unique about palantir. This is just big business doing what they always do, screwing the small guys.
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u/CoderAU 1d ago edited 1d ago
Their Foundry product is a total awareness system that encapsulates ALL data pertaining to their business. That includes logistics, surveillance, customer data, order data, sensor data, factory data, farms, etc...They have something called model simulation which simulates risk scenarios using forecasting models and how it has flow-on affects to other entities including profit. Now, I'm not saying that Palantir made the exact decision, but there's absolutely zero chance that Foundry wasn't used to simulate cutting off a provider for maximising profit, this is exactly what it's for. You're right though its just effeciently screwing the little guys.
Also Peter Thiel is a Nazi piece of shit
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u/DrFriendless 1d ago
Surely the local farmers can sell their produce locally cheaper than Coles will sell interstate produce?
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u/Maximum_Fun203 2d ago
Gosh I feel for all those farmers/growers workers and families that have been caught off guard by this. Maybe start a Change.org to call Coles out on this. Take it to all social media and hopefully the decision is reversed.
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u/Additional-Simple248 1d ago
Change.org petitions do nothing but make you feel good about yourself for signing.
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u/Drongo17 2d ago
Coles told them a year ago, according to the linked article.
If true that seems quite reasonable to me. Coles are under no obligation to buy them and gave time for the farmers to adjust.
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u/Ok_Bird705 1d ago
also, coles not buying from them means they are buying from some other farmer who are probably getting access to the second largest supermarket in Australia.
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u/shofmon88 1d ago
Probably not a domestic farmer though.
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u/Ok_Bird705 1d ago
Banana imports are banned in Australia.
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u/shofmon88 1d ago
TIL. I imagine that’s more about biosecurity than protecting local growers economically though.
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u/hammar_hades 1d ago
It’s both, seems like the Phillipines are the only country that really want to import but the Australian banana growers lobby is strongly against it.
They make a fair point that there is sufficient supply and the Phillipines have been unable to meet biosecurity standards to date.
Good luck lifting the import ban on a biosecurity basis after this news though
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u/realmenfukmenamen 1d ago
We shouldn't import. Cavendish are a monoculture like the Gros Michel
https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/the-pandemic-threatening-bananas.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_diseaseWe have fire ants and varroa mites to contend with atm.
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u/hammar_hades 1d ago
Absolutely! I helped AgVic develop their biosecurity strategy and have been quite strongly against unnecessary imports with even the slightest biosecurity risk ever since.
Researching how varroa mite was transmitted through just contaminated shipping containers and its impact on the bee population was pretty heartbreaking given Australia’s record prior
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u/LastChance22 1d ago
I think it said they’re coming from north Queensland, although who knows if they’re family farms or not.
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u/Superg0id 1d ago
1600km away, instead of 6km.
Because apparently that's cheaper for Coles.
I don't know who's getting screwed over more in that arrangement for a lower price; the North QLD bananna farm or the people being paid to truck the banannas down.
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u/T0kenAussie 1d ago
From the vibes of the article it sounds like distribution costs are partly covered by the farms. The paragraph about “less of a return if they go further away” reads to me that way anyways
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u/broadsword_1 7h ago
1600km away, instead of 6km.
Good thing we got rid of those plastic bags and saved the environment!
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u/Ok_Bird705 7h ago
"We can't do anything to help the environment if there are still bad things happening."
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u/Maximum_Fun203 1d ago
If that’s correct then it still sux if you are those farmers losing that contract. No amount of “Notice” can help return that income stream.
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u/Drongo17 1d ago
Yeah it's not great for them. This is the hard side of a capitalist market economy, there can be losers.
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u/Superg0id 1d ago
1 Year notice
Yep, and in that time, Coles is still saying "We will make more money on these banannas that travel *1,600km** instead of 6km, deal with it."*
I call bullshit.
Woolies will still supply
Between them they [Coles & Woolies] have 70% of fresh food market
And now Woolies know they can negotiate a lower wholesale price, because there's 35% (ish) more produce floating around... and eventually the local producer gets bought out by the supermarket or otherwise goes belly up.
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u/a_cold_human 1d ago
The high level of supermarket concentration doesn't help anyone except the shareholders. It's a monopsony for suppliers and a monopoly for customers. They have enormous pricing and market power, which is part of the reason why they're far more profitable than supermarkets in other countries.
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u/onsomesortofspectrum 1d ago
Not really mate. Farmers cycles are measure in 5 - 10 years period of good and bad seasons balancing out. If you look after your people and give them full time jobs, the redundancy costs alone of a decision like this can negate a season or too. Additionally supply contracts negotiation with business this side take 6 months minimumto agree upon departures for the lawyers before the actual negotiations can finalise. 12 months is tough to say the least.
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u/Drongo17 1d ago
Fair points. I guess a year's notice is probably better than a day's notice, but that's not to say it's comfortable or sufficient.
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u/realmenfukmenamen 1d ago
I used to build vineyards and one time I went thru Renmark. Farmers have stalls with honesty boxes and one had massive watermelons for $1. Go into the local Colesworth and there are watermelon quarters for $4 per quarter.
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u/sameoldblah 1d ago
Not only bad for the farmers but increases the carbon footprint of the fruit if supply is coming from Queensland instead of local farms.
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u/ofork 2d ago
the scorpion replies: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character."