FEDERAL Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has blasted Australia's big supermarket chains for being too picky when buying fruit from farmers.
Mr Burke has taken particular exception to banana size rules, saying he believed lunchbox-sized pieces would be in big demand, if only the supermarket chains stocked them.
His comments came two weeks after brisbanetimes.com.au's revealed one-third of Queensland's banana crop went to waste, sparking widespread debate on strict supermarket standards.
Mr Burke, who this week visited some of the state's banana, pineapple, strawberry farms, said he had never understood why grading guidelines were so tough.
"From my experience it actually doesn't match consumer demand," he told brisbanetimes.com.au.
"The whole concept of a lunchbox-sized banana is perfect for when you've got young kids, and you simply can't get them through the major chains, even though you've got banana growers with them readily available.
"The farmers markets are starting to pick up some of those gaps but I cannot for the life of me understand why fruit that is perfectly good for consumers can have any difficulty finding a pathway to market."
Mr Burke said while some produce would always have to be thrown out, it was frustrating to hear of "perfectly good fruit" being thrown out because of minor cosmetic blemishes.
Woolworths spokesman Luke Schepen said grading rules were based on consumer demand.
"As with everything we sell it's our customers who make the final decision and it's their buying decisions over many years that inform our banana specifications," he said.
"We do, however, recognise there is a limited amount of demand for bananas for different purposes and as such we now sell pre-packed bananas which are ideal for kids lunchboxes in a number of stores across Queensland."
The National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia, which represents 4500 smaller stores, said Western Australian banana growers have been leading the way in terms of marketing smaller and visually blemished fruit.
John Cummings, the association's WA-based chairman, said a co-op of farmers had emphasised the lunchbox angle, promoting 10 centimetres bananas rather than the conventional 15 centimetre ones.
"They went from throwing these out to, in recent times, growing 12,000 to 13,000 tonnes a year, from a product they basically used to throw away," he said.
"We actually have situations here in Perth where we pay more for these lunchbox-size bananas than these larger Queensland bananas they bring over here."
The WA co-op also started selling smoothy-suitable 750-gram bags of blemished bananas.
The Queensland Government and the CSIRO are currently working on a project with local growers to find ways to divert more of the wasted product into viable processed goods.
"WA growers are providing something for the east coast growers to think about it terms of marketing their product," said a Subtropical Banana Industry Growers spokesman.
Email a friend