This has sparked a flurry of debate over whether we prefer our Wattie's peaches from Hawke's Bay or whether we don't really care if it comes from China or not.
It's also prompted a statement from Wattie's asking us to support local growers. In other words, can we please buy New Zealand made?
Now, that is a very nice sentiment, but let's be honest, that's all it is. It is a sentiment and it's not going to work.
I mean, this is me, this is not me being cavalier about how hard this must be for the Hawke's Bay peach growers who are losing their Wattie's contracts. For them, this must be absolutely devastating and I feel terrible for them.
But this is me being realistic about the prospect of any 'Buy New Zealand Made' campaign working.
Wattie's New Zealand peaches, according to Pak’nSave's online store, are $3.90 a can. Pam's cheap peaches are 99 cents a can. That's a no-brainer, you're gonna buy the 99 cent can.
Who is buying the $3.90 can? Grey Lynn? That makes no sense whatsoever.
I mean - look, maybe if I thought about it a little bit, which I don't, but if I did, maybe I would pay 10, 20 cents, 40 cents at a push, more for a New Zealand made product. But I would not pay four times as much, it's far too expensive.
And I wouldn't even do it in the first place because buying New Zealand made never works, does it? It never has. If it did, we would still be wearing Bata Bullets and buying Juliet Hogan and eating Sanitarium peanut butter.
We wouldn't be reading about the closure of manufacturing businesses every other month, which today, by the way, is the Carter Holt Harvey mill in Tokoroa.
I do the shopping in our house 90 percent of the time and I don't even know the provenance of the food I'm buying. I do not know where the canned food comes from, I absolutely do not know where the dried goods come from. And often, I'm not even really looking where the fresh fruit comes from.
Yep, I know where the meat comes from, but that's basically a given, isn't it?
It's simple economics, it always will be.
And even if Wattie's has this tiny little hope that there might be a last-minute public rally for the New Zealand grown peaches, I think they already know the outcome, which is why they've already cut the contracts.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
Don''t know where HPA gets her prices from but far from that extreme. More typically $1.40/$2.40 or lesser gap. Many labels are unclear of source as distinct from where processed. It is astonishing that countries recently considered impoverished export food. Tinned fruit from China, fish products from Vietnam, China. Consideration of carbon miles a joke. Budget jam from Poland. Baked beans from italy! Canned fruit from Soth Africa. The move to unsweetend has distorted the canned fruit market; whilst the quantity of sugar is phenomenal, without unattractive.My main worry is contamination levels in products. Who checks and how often? What stops dubious product being dumped here?
As a grower I think you ask the wrong question.
Why are the imported items so cheap?
We are competing with countries who pay peanuts in wages and have far less in the way regulations .
Why should we compete with these countries? We are such goody two shoes and go along with compliance from here to the orchard gate.
This is the nub of why Trump has introduced tariffs. Fairness.
Is it time for tariffs ?
I aint gonna do anyfink. If this is the quality of NZ journalism no wonder the country is falling apart.
Anon 10.17 clearly hasn't noticed that life isn't fair, however you define the term. But because fairness is a social construct, everybody views what is fair, and what is not, through their own lens. And that's where free markets come to the rescue. They cut through the emotion and hand-wringing by delivering a rational solution.
Adam Smith got it right in 1776 when he invented the "ïnvisible hand". A principle that drove American exceptionalism from the getgo, delivering Americans a world-beating economy and unprecedented prosperity. That is of course until the emergence of Donald Trump.
Trump's unhinged tariffs are causing America to lose jobs, markets, and international trust, all of which diminish America as an economic powerhouse. As a direct result, all Americans face a loss in their hard-won prosperity as consumer prices soar and their ability to choose what to buy shrinks. And all caused by the intervention of one deeply flawed man in the free market. So Anon 10.17 should be very careful in characterising Trump's unhinged tariffs as being "fair". Adam Smith certainly had no doubts that tariffs were a bad thing, and Trump is daily proving how right he was.
Fortunately, we still live in a free-market economy. If Watties can't make money selling cans of New Zealand-grown peaches, then they logically have to sell something else. Those Hawkes Bay peach growers will have to either find new buyers prepared to pay a premium price, or grow something else.
Either way, it's not the job of the taxpayer to subsidise or protect them. That would result in a grossly inefficient use of scarce economic resources (ie land), and reward peach growers for poor business behaviour. Oh, and forcing everybody else to pay $3.90 a can. And I reckon that's not fair.
To the jones boy - trump has delivered for Americans! Those tarrifs have not only given all Americans some thumping big personal tax cuts (like 8k a year for the average wage earner and tax free tips for low wage earners….which is their huge cash economy), but there has also been a real rise in wages for lower skilled jobs because there are far fewer illegal immigrants being exploited and doing those jobs for a pittance….crime is down….and the USA gdp gap has now closed.
Now the hard truth - if America is not strong then who in the west is going to step up and fight for our democratic (& often Christian) values?? Russia, china? Perhaps Iran?
The world needs a strong America - nz and Australia need a strong America because without a strong America our way of life - where the most frightening thing we face is a feral possum in the headlights - is doomed.
Nz might be a little pimple on the bottom of the world but it is well and truly in the geographical strategic sights of china and they have already demonstrated how quickly and easily they can cut us off from our air and sea based supply lines with the rest of the world - and thanks to some stupid short sighted woke academics at Auckland university china has also just finished mapping all our deep sea internet cable connections to the rest of the world too.
How many people who read the article, then the comments - and think "everyone sounding off" (as usual) - but also how many people know that NZ does not / does not own Wattie's, it is owned by Heinz America - sold off by the Wattie's management many years ago, they had to, due to poor management skills (at the time) financial issues and inefficient Board Room nouse.
I am sure there are many people in Hawkes Bay (maybe beyond) can tell a story or 2 of how Wattie's dealt with growers of product.
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