AU: Marketing bodies seek amendment to Hort Code of Conduct

Australian bodies representing wholesalers have come out in defense of their industry, following the recent move by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to pursue Horticulture Code of Conduct compliance requirements against a trader but not the growers involved.

Fresh Markets Australia (FMA), the national body for representing Market Wholesalers, states that it is strongly supportive of the use of documented terms of trade, but notes that this is a responsibility of both Growers and Wholesalers. 

Moreover, Fresh State, which represents the interests of Melbourne Wholesalers and associated service industries at the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market, confirms once again that the majority of wholesalers act with commercial integrity and maintain strong trading relationships.

Fresh State President Shane Schnitzler says recent findings that Melbourne wholesaler Young Sang breached aspects of the Horticulture Code of Conduct should not tarnish the whole industry.

However, FMA Executive Director Andrew Young said that getting Growers and Wholesalers to comply with this requirement has been an ongoing issue since the Horticulture Code of Conduct was introduced in 2007.

“The task of promoting compliance has been made very difficult because of the unworkable requirements of the Code,” Mr Young said.

“On that basis, it is perhaps very unfair for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to pursue compliance requirements against a Trader (Wholesaler), if they are not going to seek those same undertakings from Grower.”

Mr Young said that the problem with the existing anti-competitive and one-sided Code of Conduct is that without a commercial focus and without the responsibilities applying equally to both sides of the transaction, it is unworkable.

FMA is seeking amendments to the current Code so as to promote better business practices, and make it more commercial and less prescriptive.

Mr Young said the Federal Government must recognise that the vast majority of the 12 million transactions processed annually by Central Market Wholesalers across Australia’s six Central Markets, do occur without any issues or disputes.

“The government’s response to the current review of the Horticulture Code of Conduct must recognise the prior comments of the Centre for International Economics that the Code imposes a one-size-fits-all approach to address problems with transactions which comprise less than 5% of total sales of domestically produced fruit and vegetables,” Mr Young said.

“The Federal Government must not repeat the grave mistake of a decade ago, implementing a new Code which is not supported by industry and remains unworkable.”

Fresh State regularly update and educate their members regarding compliance of the Horticulture Code. However breaches of the code do occur from time to time from all parties not just wholesalers. "Fresh State inform and educate the market community as much as possible but at the end of the day it is up to individual businesses to ensure their processes are up to date" says Shane referring to all parties in the transaction. 

"Unfortunately the code in its current format is not a workable or fair document for commercial enterprise which makes it difficult."

Over the coming weeks, the Federal Government will progress its ongoing review of the Mandatory Horticulture Code of Conduct.

"Fresh State is currently working with all our interstate counterparts under the banner of our national representative organisation, Fresh Markets Australia (FMA) in arguing for a fair, commercial and workable outcome," continues Shane in reference to the review of the Code which he says is long overdue.

For more information:

Shane Schnitzler, President

Tel: 0498 110 014