Flavourite chief wholesale trading officer Grant Nichol says the wholesale market offers a good option for farmers who do not sell to the big supermarkets.This has sparked protests by traders, who say they will have to pass the cost on and food prices will rise.Five days a week, while most of us are still asleep, Grant Nichol drives to the Melbourne fruit and vegetable wholesale market to haggle and sell fresh produce.
Last week the Victorian government-owned Melbourne Market Authority revealed rents for traders would rise between 6 to 7.6 per cent each year for 10 years. He said the rent hikes would mean his business would pay an extra $300,000 in 10 years' time, a difficult proposition in an operation already running on slim margins."We work long hours in a part of the day when probably most of Melbourne is asleep," Mr Nichol said.
Chief executive Jason Cooper said wholesalers could be forced out of business and the cost of fresh produce would skyrocket at a time when prices had already soared. The chief executive of independent supermarket Ritchies IGA, Fred Harrison, said the rent increase was excessive. Melbourne Market Authority chairperson Peter Toohey said rents had previously been frozen during the pandemic, and the authority relied on data from the Valuer-General Victoria to set the new rents.