our food made in CHINA !

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:14 am

The ALbrecht brothers DIscount store stopped selling my fave peanut butter imported from T'subaru territory. Only alternative turns out to be made in CHINA. I coulda swore it was made here until an old girl pointed out that she was using made in China PB on a made in China mouse trap ! It was bleeding ALDI finest! Effinerk!! Even Woolies home brand PB is made in effichinner

Just how much of your traditionl non chinese food is now made in china. Seen chinese garlic too. The melamine scare in babies milk previously sold elsewhere in the world concerns me.

FujiFan · Post by **FujiFan** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:54 am

I totally here ya there Steptoe:( Personally I actively excercise my rights as a consumer with my wallet. I avoid rubbish that is made in PRC and to a lesser extent India. Where will it end: They are buying up our farm land, then producing food and selling it back to us. They buy our resources i.e. Aluminium, steel, coal etc. then sell it back to us as cheap rubbish.

My trusty Bosch cordless drill of many years faithfull service has finally started to show its age, so I replaced it with a new one that is made in Switzerland. Cost a little more than your Bunnings garbage, but so worth it:D
If Australia made a cordless drill, I would buy it. But our Governments and greedy shareholders/boardmembers have seen to it that we do not produce products 'cost effectively'.

Point is this is not about dislike for other cultures, But a massive discontent with scales of economies and a throw away society that is propped up by cheap labor and the greedy few that seem to rule the roost!!!!

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 7:24 am

But then Aust, in a country that is often in drought, exports 95% of its rice harvest to china.

Post by **TOONGA** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:21 am

Nearly everything is made in China or has parts sourced from China.

a long time ago when I had hair, I can remember people complaining how everything was made in Japan, then Taiwan and now China and India. isn't child labour at 50 cents a day excellent (and thats well paid child labour)

TOONGA

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:53 am

WHA...?? They buying our farming land up too ???

Oh, and no offense intended to those of any Chinese background, or anyone else with a skerrick of Chinese in them. I have very little cultural experience with China, maybe more, like a tour of their peanut butter production facilty and their peanut farms soil practices would alleve my fears.

am old enough to recall when imported food was dearer and considered a luxury and not from China. I even baulk at biccies made in Macedonia selling cheap, but shouldn't because I know a few Mackos with wives and daughters that can cook some really good stuff - out of local and imported ingredients.
If the PB was say cost plus 40% and end up paying 70 cents a jar - I would then be sharing finncially in the cost benefit of made in China and be able to assess the risk V cost and make another decision as whether I bought and consumed it

uughg

apg39 · Post by **apg39** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:25 am

Yeah China is buying a lot of our big companies too, from memory Arnotts, SPC, Dairy Farmers & a few others.

The whole supermarket chain is littered with cheaper product which they still charge us full price for. Even the "patriotic Aussie legends who support our economy" Woolies has their self labelled stuff imported, even some hand wash is made elsewhere...how much extra does it cost to bung a few chemicals into a bottle over here as opposed to China??

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:22 am

I buy dick smith since its all australian made and owned. You're only talking a few extra cents every few months.

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:46 am

Venom wrote:I buy dick smith since its all australian made and owned. You're only talking a few extra cents every few months.

DSE owned by Woolies - in the takeover Tandy slipped away. Still raging against that as it saw the end of the Radioshack battery club!

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:11 pm

My biggest gripe with buying food from overseas is that their food standards are non existent. Orange juice commonly comes from Africa, where they still use DDT

Bryan1 · Post by **Bryan1** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 3:03 pm

It does seem where the mass's are forced to buy food from oversea's we left the main stream over 9 years ago. We grow all our own veges and herbs and get stray lambo's on our place that go straight into the shearing shed for the chop. Until one can taste the difference using fresh home grown herbs in a roast compared to dried commercial crap one will never know just how it is to grow your own herbs and stuff and it fresh on hand when needed. Recently I scored two pigs and had a chat with a neighbor where we swapped kilo for kilo pork for beef. Now both the house freezer is chock a block with meat and my shed freezer is full to the max.

For guy's living in SA, my wife is a horticulturist and she has her own herb business so if you guy's want to start your own herb garden get in touch with me and it will be too easy to arrange. Now I am after another cow as I only have one Low Line Angus cow here to keep her company so if 3 SA locals want to pitch in with me and buy a calf, I can fatten it up and get my mate who is a retired country butcher to slaughter it when ready. He will do it for free and take a few Kg's for himself. So the offer is there if some SA guy's want decent homegrown herbs and country fattened beef. Just remember it will take 12-18 months for the calf to grow but think of it as an investment.

Cheers Bryan

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:51 pm

It is a sorry sight indeed when food is imported and sold cheaper than what it costs to make it here

Not long ago I saw a report on chinese APPLES! being imported and sold in Australia. Ever since I couldn't get my head around how it is cheaper to grow, pick and ship a box of apples from China than it is to get apples from half an hours drive away right off the tree. The once every week or two I go to the shops I get all that stuff from the fruit and veg shop where everything has a big GROWN IN AUSTRALIA sign posted below the price sign.

But I can very easily see us going down the path of the UK and US; in the UK almost all the "fresh" produce is from Spain, France and even South America and the quality compared to ours here is noticeably lower. I found it hilarious that they get a bunch of fresh cut flowers from somewhere like Switzerland to their supermarket in less than 24 hours

And in the US where the Government subsidizes growth chemicals for chicken farmers, and fizzy sugar water is cheaper than bottled water.

Bryan, although we don't live on a farm type property we have tried many times (like right now) to grow vegetables in the garden, we've found the hard way that when a seed packet says "full sun" it means a full British sun, not the 45C we get in summer

And if you leave the soil in full sun for one summer it turns hydrophobic (water runs off like the soil is covered in wax)

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 7:01 pm

Thinking about this over a few 'lemonades' at least we have an abundance of food, choices and high quality. Better off than NE Africa ATM.

We are very spoilt in a great first world nation such as Australia.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:43 am

Yep, no longer do countries need to fight wars to take over other countries - just use your big business to OWN it! It's a sorry state of affairs the way our farmers are being treated by the government and the big supermarket chains that practically dictate the price to the producers. I also disagree with foreign countries buying vast tracts of land... It's a disgrace!

We should be supporting our farmers and making sure that we are one of the great quality food bowls providing to the world... Without our own food production kept in-house we loose our self-sustaining quality that we have now but don't seem to recognise.

Chinese foods including "fresh" veges etc are another good reason why we should be going back to the basics and not relying on a factory to process foods, make sauces etc.

We've just started supporting local butchers - the quality of their meat is much better than what we've become accustom to from the supermarkets. We might start to look into organic veges when we get back home. I know we only pick out the fruit and veg that states that they're from Australia, hopefully no one's buggered around with the labels.

Apples are a major issue at the moment too. I don't know if you're aware of the battle local producers are having with the intended imports from NZ. It's not because of the competition, it's because of the diseases that NZ have that we haven't got and don't want in the apple industry.

I guess the main issue here really is: Why are we importing food that we can already produce in more than sufficient quantities with in our borders?

I would also like to see a the "made from local and imported ingredients" changed to either a percentage of local and imported ingredients displayed or even better, a list of what was from Australia and what was from else where in the world. The way I see it the product needs only one local ingredient in it to get this label and even then we don't know what that item in the ingredients is and how much of it was used. By using this current label we are basically blind to the origin of the ingredients and the content that is from local sources.

Cheers

Bennie

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:09 am

Worse label is "packed in Australia from imported ingredients".
Coles have actually bought farms to control qulity of meat at least for starters, so their profits are going back into buying Australian. On the PB scene, Coles have two home brands, the older one being phased out of marketing is made in China, new look is Oz made from local and imported ingredients. Maybe our supermarkets are buying up peanut farms.
Sadly Nudie orange juice is now made of imported stuff due to shortage of oranges here. Now . who was knocking over their orchards??

Silverbullet · Post by **Silverbullet** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:34 pm

steptoe wrote:Sadly Nudie orange juice is now made of imported stuff due to shortage of oranges here. Now . who was knocking over their orchards??

And feeding their entire crop to the sheep

I bought a food grade 44 gal empty drum from Paramount scrap yard, got it home and looked at the sticker still plastered on the side;
"Orange juice concentrate" from Florida, US

GOD · Post by **GOD** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 8:09 pm

So, any volunteers to work here for Chinese labour rates so we can all enjoy cheap produce? Or anyone ready to buy a supermarket and try to make a profit on existing local produce?

Australia makes the things that it's good at making.

Dane.

dfoyl · Post by **dfoyl** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:15 pm

The problem is long-term Chinese wages are climbing, and eventually all the eastern countries are going to come up to the west so the days of "cheap" will be gone. The consumers of Australia are in the middle of a bonanza with a strong dollar and cutting out the middleman finally (I'm looking at companies like Bonds here, who screwed over their long-term loyal workers for a quick buck and have now completely screwed themselves because their expected sales are going out the door as people direct-source from the same market as they (Bonds) do). There is going to be a major correction in the retail price of goods in the medium-to-long term (apart from things consumers can't import themselves readily - whitegoods and cars are still going to be way overpriced, but parts for them will drop - and foodstuffs that can't be imported - fresh meat and bananas would be two prime examples), until the o/s retailers start to push prices back up based on labor cost increases. In the meantime, keep on buying...

d_generate · Post by **d_generate** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 4:31 pm

Still going to take a while for wages to catch up in places like China, Thailand, Taiwan etc average minimum wage is around $50 per week in the less built up areas and much lower in the rural areas so things will be moved around and India is coming on strong now and lots of even poorer countries still to use so it'll be a while before we see cheap/same price goods being made at home again.

Post by **Alex** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:24 am

all the purple garlic in the big shops(coles, woolys, IGA) at the moment is from Spain

refusing to buy it, all i want is good aussie purple garlic!

the shitty white garlic comes from china. Feck that.

alex

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:36 pm

GOD wrote:So, any volunteers to work here for Chinese labour rates so we can all enjoy cheap produce? Or anyone ready to buy a supermarket and try to make a profit on existing local produce?

Australia makes the things that it's good at making.

Dane.

Word

I'd prefer GM food, or imported food over NO food.

Think how spoilt we are in this great first world nation we (sometimes) take for granted