Dick Smith blames Aldi for end of food venture

ENTREPRENEUR Dick Smith has shocked the retail industry by announcing he will close his eponymous Dick Smith Foods business, claiming that the rise and rise of German discount supermarket chain Aldi in Australia has “basically destroyed us”.

Mr Smith yesterday said he had no choice but to close the Australian-sourced products business he started nearly two decades ago, which has donated all of its $10 million-plus in profits to charity.

“We’re now at a point where the only way we can get sales is make a loss,” he said.

“Right now, we’re making a profit, which we give away. But I can say within two years, we’ll go broke.

“It’s very, very sad. I’m depressed about the whole thing.

“Aldi have basically destroyed us.”

Mr Smith repeatedly broke down at a press conference in Sydney as he announced the end of the food venture, launched with much fanfare in 2001 with the motto “As Australian as You Can Get”.

He said he’d been forced out by the “extreme capitalism” of global supermarkets like Aldi, which had lured consumers with cheap imports.

“It will destroy Australia as we know today because you will end up with … a lot of poor people and the pitchforks come out,” he declared as he held a large plastic pitchfork.

Dick Smith Foods, he said, had dwindled dramatically over the years, shrinking from 70 food line products to just 13 as it faced the impossible challenge of trying to compete with Aldi’s cutthroat prices and cheap food imports.

The business would be shut within a year, Mr Smith said.

“I’ve been outmanoeuvred by modern extreme capitalism as the greed takes over,” he said. “The thing that has caught us is that we support Australian wages and foods.”

Aldi Australia said it proudly supported an Australianfirst buying policy and had shared its growth with more than 1000 local suppliers and 11,500 Australian employees.