Call to back local dairy’s products

A FAR North producer has called on the community to support its products, which are under review at one of the region’s biggest supermarkets.

Mungalli Creek Dairy communications manager Michelle Bell-Turner said the business was in negotiations with Coles to continue supplying the grocery giant, but to maintain stock levels, Coles management at the Melbourne head office needed to understand the level of support for the brand and see an improvement in the number of units sold each week.

The Atherton Tablelands company took to social media yesterday to check support for its range of yoghurts. “Coles have told us that they may delete our yoghurts if we cannot prove that our customers would shop elsewhere,” the post on Facebook read.

“They are looking to improve their efficiencies by reducing brands that deliver directly to their stores. That includes local brands like Mungalli Creek.

“Instead, they would like to use state and national brands who can supply via their centralised systems.

“So we need your help to prove that you want Mungalli in Coles stores.”

The post has received more than 700 positive comments and been shared more than 400 times.

“Locally, the Coles stores and managers are and have always been very helpful and supportive of our products,” Ms Bell-Turner said.

“Our larger 1kg and 750g yoghurt ranges and milk sell well, however the smaller yoghurt sizes need to improve and to that end we will be changing our 200g size to 160g to make it more lunchboxfriendly.

“We’re in the middle of discussions and want Coles head office to be supportive. They asked us to demonstrate customer sentiment and we thought social media was a good way to get customer sentiment.

“Some of our performance in the product lines isn’t where we need it to be. If we were having fantastic unit sales in each store, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.”

Any decisions will be made by Coles this month and come into effect in July.

“You have that dilemma where customers say they love you and want to support you and they do in some lines, but not in all lines,” Ms Bell-Turner said. “We haven’t in the past done promotional programs. We are proud of our product and don’t think we should discount it but we might need to be doing that.”

Coles has been contacted for comment.

Support Mungalli Creek Dairy by buying their locally produced yoghurts and head to their Facebook page or website to tell them if you would shop elsewhere if Coles removed the product.