I am still scratching my head

I am still scratching my head to try to work out why supermarket giant Coles – which has built much of its recent growth on advertising its relationships with Australian farmers – decided to publicly decided to jump into bed with the animal liberation movement Animals Australia last week. Perhaps their marketing gurus were on leave and the work experience kids were running the PR department.

For those of you who missed it, 500 Coles supermarkets stocked branded Animals Australia bags, with sales proceeds going to AA’s campaign urging consumers to buy cage-free, free range chicken and sow stall free pork.

Coles has achieved phenomenal growth in market share in the past few years, largely through targeted ad campaigns based on its associations with Australian farmers. At the same time, the Coles ‘Down Down’ campaign created $1 a litre milk, $1 a loaf of bread and many more price cuts on mainly fresh produce lines. These price cuts have driven reduced returns through the supply chain and hurt the bottom line of those same farmers.

So when the two got together last week, many in the rural community saw this as a further insult by Coles. For Coles to be saying it “supports a sustainable and prosperous Australian farming and food manufacturing sector” and then teaming up with a vocal animal rights group campaigning to drive farmers out of business was too much for many, including long-suffering farmers.

Insult piled on injury, as it became clear that Coles continued to stock not only caged eggs, but also pork products imported from countries with no rules preventing use of sow stalls in their production systems. Then evidence leaked out that the bags promoted by AA were produced from man-made fibres in China.

Coles’ management these days may well be dominated by people brought up in the UK Tesco supermarket culture. However, I would have thought it would have been blindingly obvious even to them that by publicly supporting the more radical agenda of AA, they would be offending just about every farmer in Australia.

Animals Australia is not an animal welfare organisation in the same sense as the RSPCA – it spends not one cent on caring for animals. Reading its website makes it clear that its ultimate aim is to free all animals from exploitation by humans. That includes their use for food, leather, hunting, running round in circles with jockeys on their back, or even as pets.

In order to achieve its aims, AA runs media campaigns, including those that have highlighted clearly unacceptable practices in some overseas abattoirs.

Australian farmers were as shocked as everyone else at this behaviour. No one supports animal cruelty. That is why it is against the law. The overriding concern of farmers is for the welfare of their animals. Farmers work every day to improve the welfare of animals in their care. They do this because it is the right thing to do. But there is no recognition of their efforts from activists like AA.
It’s the rampant hypocrisy that really rankles.

The hypocrisy of AA activists that care nothing about child labour or environmental pollution in China; that run a liberationist agenda under the guise of a welfare campaign; and that spend not one cent of the millions of dollars they raise each year on actually improving welfare outcomes for animals.

The hypocrisy of Coles that promotes its relationships with Aussie farmers while sending them broke; that spruiks its animal welfare credentials by partnering with AA and at the same time selling imported products from countries that care little about animal welfare outcomes; and that is owned by Wesfarmers, founded in 1914 as the Westralian Farmers Co-operative.

The hypocrisy of governments that pile more and more rules and regulations and more and more costs onto Australian farmers, making them less and less competitive; while at the same time allowing those imported products that don’t have to meet any of the same standards into the country.

This time, farmers fought back – using social media, traditional media, word of mouth. Have a look through the #agchatoz hashtag on Twitter and you’ll find the general sentiment among those directly impacted. The fact that Coles could say one thing and do another really hurt farmers – but also many consumers.

Coles withdrew the AA bags within two days. AA was on TV complaining about being bullied by farmers. Talk about pots and kettles!

The outrage was warranted and will take a while to die down. It will take a lot longer for Coles to overcome the impact on its reputation.