Anidav posted:

Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith has announced he is closing his line of Australian-made groceries, Dick Smith Foods, blaming competition by the Aldi supermarket chain, which he says has made it impossible for his brands to continue selling enough to maintain its presence on supermarket shelves.

As he made the announcement publicly at a press conference on Thursday morning, Mr Smith choked back tears, saying he tried to save the jobs of workers in Australia but failed.

“I couldn’t, I couldn’t. It was beyond me,” he said.

The closure will affect four staff directly and hundreds or even thousands employed by various suppliers around the country over the next 12 months, Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith said he believed that Aldi's aggressive low-cost business model would eventually challenge Australian giants Coles and Woolworths.

"Unless Coles and Woolworths match Aldi by reducing their product range to about 1700 lines and getting rid of about 75 per cent of their staff, I don't know how they can compete," he said.

Mr Smith said that Aldi maintained low cost not just by sourcing cheap overseas foodstuffs, but also by keeping down the number of products it sold so that it did not need as many staff to stock shelves and maintain its stores. The money saved in employment costs was then redirected to the company's private owners, he said.

"You've got this company that has now been voted the most trusted brand in Australia ... Most people don't know that it is a private German company that works on the principal of getting people sacked and importing from the absolute lowest countries in the world," he said.

As an example, he said that Dick Smith Foods' peanut butter, sourced from local growers, sold for $1.28 per 100 grams, while its Aldi competition sold for 48¢ for the same amount.

He said that, when Aldi entered the Australian market, it sourced much of its grocery line from Australian producers, but now that it was established it relied on lower cost international producers.

On Wednesday, Mr Smith sent a letter to the managing directors of Coles and Woolworths supermarkets, as well as to the chief executive of Metcash Group, which controls IGA, to explain his decision. The letter included a chart that showed how Dick Smith Food sales had declined in Australia since 2001 at a similar rate to the increase of Aldi turnover.

"By a fluke of birth [Aldi's owners] are multi-billionaires when we have five million Australians who live pay packet to pay packet," he wrote.

"It looks as there is nothing we can do about this. It is simply modern extreme capitalism."
Mr Smith also wrote to Aldi's owners Karl Albrecht and Beate Heister via the chief executive officer of Aldi Australia, Tom Daunt, to outline his concerns about the impact of Aldi in Australia.

"Karle and Beate, I understand you are the son and daughter of Mr Karl Albrecht Snr, who came up with the Aldi 'plan'. That is, basically sharing the wealth less. Your father, who started the great expansion of the company, worked out that by having a lesser selection of products, you could therefore employ less workers.

"I have an important question to ask you. When will enough be enough?"

He accused the family of running a secretive company that it had used to accumulate a personal fortune of $40 billion, and invited them to come to Australia to explain their long term plans.

"What I want to know … is their plan to keep expanding here and to take over the market place? I suspect it is."

In a letter to Fairfax Media Mr Daunt said that Aldi had "never sought to 'maximise' profits at the cost of something or someone else".

"Continually maximising profits becomes a zero sum game. If you truly partner with suppliers, you'll develop long term prosperity for both parties to the benefit of customers. If you look after your employees they will enjoy turning up to work and they'll enjoy looking after customers.

"We proudly support an Australian first buying policy and have shared our growth with hundreds of Australian manufacturers and thousands of staff who have been direct benefactors of our business growth.

"We are not a business trying to artificially accelerate market share and we're not looking to match the store count of our competitors. We do not cut corners, we do not abuse our market power, we do not mislead our customers. We do not avoid tax payments, we do not squeeze our suppliers. We keep things simple and we focus our attention on what matters most to consumers."

A Woolworths spokesperson told Fairfax Media: "Dick Smith Foods is an iconic Aussie brand that many of our customers love and support, so we're sad to hear this news.

"More and more of our customers tell us that a one-size-fits-all approach to supermarket ranging doesn't deliver what they want or need.

"It's why our long-term vision is to broaden the range of products we carry across our network, so we can deliver more tailored and locally relevant ranges for our customers in their local store."

Dick Smith Food was established in 1999 as part of an effort by Mr Smith to support Australian farmers and employees. Since then it has had sales of about $480 million. Mr Smith said he had never taken a cent from the business, but had donated about $10 million in profits to various causes, most recently a $1 million donation to the Country Women's Association for drought relief.

Despite his own fortune Mr Smith has long called upon Australia's wealthiest citizens to pay higher taxes and give away more in philanthropy.

You Am I posted:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-26/why-roads-are-becoming-narrower-in-the-suburbs/10032984

Yes, with people owning and driving huge arsed wide SUVs and blocking up the streets as they are, making it havoc for emergency workers, narrowing the streets even further is a brilliant idea!

LOL at the idea of it reducing Australia's dependency on private vehicles, as if that will ever happen.

froglet posted:

I mean, if you live <10km from your work and hobbies and you're close to public transport, you can easily get by with one or no car, and maybe this is the nudge people need to start look at alternatives.

froglet posted:

Apparently frustrating people into not driving actually works, though.

When my husband and I moved house we decided that the carport was such a pain to park in with two cars it'd be better if we sold my car and dealt with any irritation or annoyance of only having one car as it came up rather than the every day annoyance of figuring out how to park or get my bike out. So far it's been fine and we're saving a thousand or so dollars a year in misc car stuff.

I mean, if you live <10km from your work and hobbies and you're close to public transport, you can easily get by with one or no car, and maybe this is the nudge people need to start look at alternatives.

You Am I posted:

Yes, but if you're a family who has to live on the fringe because of housing costs that poo poo isn't easy because there's never any proper public transport infrastructure outside of buses, and having to travel at least an hour to get to your workplace or relatives.

I don't want to be harsh on you being a typical inner city Greenie, but jeez froglet.

Les Affaires posted:

Somehow I doubt the narrowing of streets will affect the outer suburbs before it does the inner ones.

You Am I posted:

Depends, if major roadways like for example in Melbourne, Kings Way or St Kilda Road get narrowed too much, it will balloon the travel times for people travelling in from the fringes.

Anidav posted:

Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith has announced he is closing his line of Australian-made groceries, Dick Smith Foods, blaming competition by the Aldi supermarket chain, which he says has made it impossible for his brands to continue selling enough to maintain its presence on supermarket shelves.

BBJoey posted:

capitalist cries on discovering other capitalists are better at capitalism than he

Senor Tron posted:

When I think "flourishing jobs market" I too think of post-Brexit UK.

You Am I posted:

Yes, but if you're a family who has to live on the fringe because of housing costs that poo poo isn't easy because there's never any proper public transport infrastructure outside of buses, and having to travel at least an hour to get to your workplace or relatives.

I don't want to be harsh on you being a typical inner city Greenie, but jeez froglet.

Don Dongington posted:

I literally cannot think of a single Dick Smith's food product that was actually better than other commercially available products and maybe that's why your business is dying hth

swimsuit posted:

"at least we still have the guardian" lol

Don Dongington posted:

I literally cannot think of a single Dick Smith's food product that was actually better than other commercially available products and maybe that's why your business is dying hth

Recoome posted:

Dick Smith, noted nationalist, is defeated by the SHADY GERMANS >_> <_<

Don Dongington posted:

I literally cannot think of a single Dick Smith's food product that was actually better than other commercially available products and maybe that's why your business is dying hth

Don Dongington posted:

Anidav posted:

So an explosion happened in Beijing and deaths and casualties are unknown and Sky News is interviewong Pauline Hanson about it and she keeps going on about dangerous times.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Is she back from Ireland?

Dude McAwesome posted:

Being interviewed from the cruise ship buffet.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Is she back from Ireland?