Aldi slams Dick Smith’s price war claims

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Aldi slams Dick Smith’s price war claims

May 11th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Discount supermarket Aldi says it can’t be blamed for the purchasing practices of its two major rivals.

In a bid to douse claims from entrepreneur Dick Smith that the chain’s pricing policies were pushing Australian food producers out of business, Aldi says 70 per cent of its Australian grocery sales come from locally produced products.

“Aldi is committed to Australian manufacturers,” the German-owned company said in a statement.

Mr Smith told a Senate inquiry into Australia’s food-processing sector on Friday that competition pressure from foreign-owned retailers made it harder for local producers to sell to Australian supermarkets Coles and Woolworths.

Aldi had a greater turnover of stock and consistently offered below-cost products from overseas, he said.

Local producers couldn’t match the low prices and were pushed out.

“Then they put the price back up again,” Mr Smith told the committee hearing.

He said last year’s milk pricing war – sparked when Coles slashed the price of milk to $1 a litre – was a response to competition pressure from Aldi and US-owned warehouse store Costco.

Mr Smith, the operator of Dick Smith Foods, which markets Australian-grown products, said these pricing practices made it hard for him to compete against famous brands – including Cottee’s, Arnott’s, Golden Circle and Edgell – that were now foreign-owned.

In one example, Mr Smith said he had intervened to stop an Australian beetroot farmer from burying his crop earlier this year.

He canned the crop and offered it to Coles and Woolworths for $1, but was undercut when Aldi started selling a similar product sourced overseas for 75 cents, he said.

Aldi said all its beetroot was grown and packaged in Australia, and sold above cost.

“Any implication that Aldi beetroot comes from overseas is wrong,” the company said.

Mr Smith said he was reluctant to complain to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission because it was likely nothing illegal had taken place.

Coles and Woolworths could not be reached for comment.