After months of increasingly alarming price rises in the supermarket fruit and vegetable section, relief may be on the way – but shoppers are warned the reprieve may be short-lived.
Crops damaged by flooding in Queensland and northern New South Wales earlier this year sent the prices of popular fresh produce soaring, with iceberg lettuce reportedly reaching up to $12 per head at some outlets.
But relatively calm winter weather has allowed farmers to replenish their stocks, taking the pressure off price tags.
Coles and Woolworths are now advertising iceberg lettuce at $2.50 and $2.90, respectively, as they reduce and freeze prices of hundreds of other items.
Australian Farmer’s Federation chief economist Ash Salardini said other factors, such as the lower price of fuel and the prospect of increased grain imports from Ukraine, are also helping drive fresh produce costs down.
Mr Salardini said aside from lettuce and other leafy vegetables, apple prices are likely to come down soon, and avocados are expected to remain fairly cheap.
Ausveg communications manager Shaun Lindhe said consumers should also being seeing more of produce such as beans, zucchini and capsicum over the summer months.
Danger signs ahead
Despite recent improvements, growing conditions are far from perfect.
An executive of a Queensland-based supplier of lettuce, basil and bananas to supermarkets said while sunny weather has ensured more produce supply, conditions are still ‘not 100 per cent’ as farms recover from a string of extreme weather events.
The company lost five consecutive lettuce and basil crops thanks to this year’s Queensland floods – equal to about five months’ supply.
The key supplier, who spoke to The New Daily on condition of anonymity, also lost three crops of bananas, and suffered another hit when flooding in Sydney affected incoming seedling stock.
With the Australian Bureau of Meteorology warning Australia is facing a wet and flood-prone end to the year, the fresh produce executive warned shoppers shouldn’t be breathing a sigh of relief over lower prices just yet.
If the bureau’s forecast proves right, he said Australians could be facing the same high prices for fresh produce they have endured for most of this year – if not even higher.
“If wet weather comes back, there’s nothing we can do about it,” he said.
Resilient supply
Mr Lindhe said while it might take flood-hit regions some time to recover, a strong farming presence throughout the country means produce items won’t disappear from shelves entirely.
“We have a nationally resilient supply chain which means that when one region goes down, other regions can, given time, pick up the slack … to minimise availability gaps for consumers,” he said.
But Mr Salardini warned the availability of farm workers, or lack of, would also determine whether shoppers see food price inflation continue over the next six to 12 months.
“We have a 170,000-worker shortage across the supply chain,” he said.
“That’s on farms, at processors, in the supply chain with trucks, and at the supermarket.
“If they’re not available, we could grow the food, [but] whether it gets to the market efficiently is another issue.”
Supermarkets race to drop and lock prices
While fruit and vegetable prices depend largely on the weather, the country’s major supermarkets are reducing and locking-down the prices as plunging real wages strain household budgets.
From Wednesday (August 24) until November 29, Woolworths will reduce the price of more than 400 ‘springtime grocery staples’, from chicken to vitamins.
The move comes after the supermarket announced a price-freeze on almost 200 products through to the end of the year.
Not to be outdone, Coles announced on Monday a price lock-down on more than 1100 products, from eggs to nappies, until January 31.
“As we lead into Christmas, we know customers want to see price stability and prices come down on the products that matter to them most, so we’ve locked the price of more than 1100 products in store and online, and we are currently lowering the price of 500 more,” said Coles chief executive of commercial and express Leah Weckert.
