On a wild goose chase to find Australian food brands

Earlier in the week Allen Roberts wrote that Australian owned food products faced extinction in the aisles of Australia’s duopoly supermarkets. Peter Roberts went on the hunt.

I am always on the lookout for Australian made and owned products when I go shopping, but even I was not ready for the desert of genuine Australian food products in a local supermarket.

I won’t name the shop but if ‘Good things are happening…’ in either of the supermarket giants it must refer to their profits rather than the fate of Australian made and owned food brands.

As Allen Roberts identified, one issue here is the substitution of home brands for local brands – the attraction of this is the retailer takes the manufacturer and retailer margin. Another is simply foreign companies with deeper pockets.

My starting point is whether troubled Sara Lee will manage to emerge as Australian owned from administration.

Straight to the spreads aisle where I know I will find Bega’s Vegemite recently bought from overseas control and Bega peanut butter, including my favourite Bega Just Nuts which as an added bonus is made from Australian grown nuts – yes both are still there.

But there I also find a recently added Just Nuts rival – not a home brand – that describes itself in similar terms as made of only peanuts…but in this case the nuts are sourced from South America.

Bega cheese is also well represented and by my experience continues to offer good value compared to foreign owned brands.

In fact, Bega Group is by far the biggest of the remaining Australian made and owned food brands, in its case with a healthy $3 billion plus turnover.

Murray Goulburn is another healthy Australian food brand turning over $2.4 billion, followed by Norco on $681 million also in dairy.

Next door to peanut butter is jam – you can see I had a culinary deprived childhood – where I look in vain for my favourite Australian owned Beerengerg jam – it is nowhere to be seen.

A hop round to cordials finds one or two varieties of the same company’s cordials on an obscure lower shelf, overwhelmed by foreign owned products.

Beerenberg is typical of the Australian minnows you can still find on the shelves of the big two with a turnover of only $5 million plus.

Bigger is SPC Group turning over around $400 million, olive oil producer Cobram Estate with sales of $216 million, pasta maker San Remo on $131 million a year, Maggie Beer on $89 million and Bickfords on $55 million a year.

But then the Australian food brand well of any size runs dry.

Coopers Brewery whose sales are $216 million also makes some sales through supermarkets – which reminds me that in the big two’s liquor outlets Australian made and owned brands are better represented – long may it be so.

Further reading:
Australian FMCG brands facing extinction?- by Allen Roberts
Aussie food makers enter administration