Are Coles 'real' suppliers really real?

YES THEY ARE

This is a very quick post because it's late in the day and my dinner is nearly ready.

I had to buy some parsley from Coles the other day because my old supply is over it and my new supply are not big enough. And, as with an increasing number of their fresh food products, I noticed on the pack - or sleeve as they like to call it - a photo of two men with their names - Jan Vydra and William Pham - "proudly growing herbs for Coles since 2008". Good marketing thought I, but are they real? Well I suppose they would have to be if you think about it. Too many potential court cases otherwise.

Nevertheless I looked them up and they do indeed exist. Their company is Australian Fresh Leaf Herbs and you too can find them on the net. They produce 100,000 bunches of 17 different herbs weekly - so a pretty large business. I notice that they started business in 2008 and that Coles has just given them an interest free loan to build a large hydroponic greenhouse, so you would have to wonder I guess how much is this a Coles company. Though when you read their 'About' stuff it's really quite impressive. So young - the CEO - Jan Vydra is only in his early thirties. He seems to have drawn together a fragmented industry, making it more efficient in every way - not just the growing but also the supply chain. He personally won the Young Farmer of the Year Award in 2011 and a Nuffield Scholarship in 2016. And his business partner, with a background in banking has probably managed the financial side of things. I think it's all very impressive and power to them - and to Coles too for being so canny in who it supports. Good for the image. There is an interesting article on them in The Weekly Times. There don't seem to be any negative comments at all about them.

And they must come from migrant families too with names like that. Isn't it interesting that the companies that I have occasionally looked at in the course writing this blog have invariably come from migrant families. Bit of an argument for immigration don't you think?

I might look into some of their other suppliers some other time. Some of them are listed on their packaging, some of them are listed and featured in their magazine.

The parsley, by the way, was of excellent quality. Though not real cheap I suppose. $2.50 for the sleeve - equivalent to a bunch in the market, where you can probably get it for a dollar or just over. And you should grow your own parsley.