WAFarmers sounds price rise warning

The Western Australian Farmers Federation has claimed Coles’ decision to cut the price of its meat products will result in price rises across other products.

Coles said it would cut prices across its range of house brand sausages, mince, steak and chops by between 11 and 28 per cent.

WAFarmers president Mike Norton said the federation would be monitoring prices at the farm gate to ensure farmers would not lose out, and that consumers should prepare themselves for cost increases in other goods.

“We learnt from the reduction of milk prices, that the prices at this level cannot be sustained and margins need to be recovered elsewhere in store,” Mr Norton said.

“Red meat protein is already in short supply, so any attempt from retailers to drive prices down will be difficult and ultimately will lead to further shortages of supply long-term, which means higher prices for red meat products to consumers.”

“We have already herad concerns from farmers over milk and Coles’ other pricing strategies and I would not be surprised to see farmers starting to vote with their feet and move away from using Coles-related companies when sourcing their farm inputs such as fertiliser.”

Coles is 100 per cent-owned by diversified conglomerate Wesfarmers, which also controls the CSBP Fertilisers business.