Woolies says disruption into March

Shortages on Perth supermarket shelves could last until late March, although the reconnection of the state’s rail link with the east is now expected next week.

Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci told customers in an email today that the company expected disruptions to continue for four to six weeks.

That follows flooding which took out portions of the Trans-Australian railway.

Mr Banducci said about 80 per cent of products are usually brought in from interstate, with about 20 days of additional stock in Western Australia in readiness for outages.

Road and sea freight contingencies could only cover 20 per cent of the shortfall, he said.

All of this is compounded by COVID-related team shortages on the east coast.

“Given this shortfall, we are working in close partnership with key logistics and transport partners, as well as the Federal and WA governments, to find practical ways to increase the flow of goods,” he said. 

“These options include more coastal shipping capacity, the temporary approval of triple road trains and establishing a 'land bridge' across the Nullarbor."

Woolworths has also changed maximum product limits, with WA punters limited to two packs per shop of paper towels, rice, pasta, sugar, flour, eggs, frozen fruit, frozen vegetables, and frozen chips.

But, Mr Banducci said there were good levels of stock coming in from local suppliers, with about 80 per cent of fresh fruit and vegetables sourced within the state.

Also today, the Australian Rail Track Corporation has revised its forecast for when track between Adelaide and Tarcooma will be operational.

The date is now February 15, a few days later than previously expected.

“ARTC will now work with our customers to ensure operations can commence safely and that freight can get moving on this vital rail link connecting Western Australia and the Northern Territory,” a spokesperson said.

“Since the flooding occurred on the weekend of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of January, our crews have worked around the clock to fix damaged locations along a 300-kilometre stretch of track.

“ARTC thanks our crews, contractors, local mines in the region and suppliers who have all worked together to repair the damage.”

Western Roads Federation chief executive Cam Dumesny said the land bridge operation was going well, but only a short term fix.

He was concerned that the state would next be hit by supply chain disruption from higher Omicron cases, just as freight movements started to return to normal once the track was fixed.

Road could not pick up the volume of rail freight, even with extra trucks from the east coast coming online to serve the east west route and the Northern Territory.

One business knocked back 150 trailer loads in three days because of the rapid increase in demand.

“It’ll take time to rebuild our stocks and warehouses,” he said.

“Our warehouses are our buffer.

“We’ve got to refill that buffer against disruption as soon as we can.”

Longer term, the freight issue should spark a national review of supply chains into WA and the Northern Territory, including looking at coastal shipping and air freight, Mr Dumesny said.