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NEWS AFGC BACKS MOVES TO STRENGTHEN LOCAL MANUFACTURING The Australian Food & Grocery Council (AFGC) has welcomed federal government moves to strengthen the nation’s domestic manufacturing capabilities and shore up supply. While the $122.1 billion food and grocery manufacturing sector remains Australia’s largest, the AFGC says conditions have put businesses under pressure. The AFGC says the sector employs more than 273,300 people, representing almost 40 per cent of total manufacturing employment, and is the lifeblood of many regional and rural communities, where 39.3 per cent of these jobs are based. The Council says it welcomes the opportunity to work with the government to strengthen global supply chains as well as providing a strong and stable economic environment for domestic manufacturing to grow. AFGC Acting CEO Dr Geoffrey Annison says that while the COVID-19 crisis has reinforced how strong and reliable Australia’s food and grocery supply chain was, all moves to strengthen and support the sector were welcome. “Drought, bushfires, rising input prices, seven years of consecutive supermarket price deflation and now COVID-19 have put significant pressure on the sector and the AFGC welcomes the opportunity to work with the government to determine ways the sector can remain a powerhouse and support increased domestic manufacturing,” he said. “During this crisis our food and grocery manufacturers continue to work around the clock to ensure Australians have access to the essential products they need. This has meant ramping up operations to 24/seven to ensure products are making it to supermarket shelves. “In Australia we are lucky because most of our food is grown and produced here. We produce enough food to feed 75 million people – enough to feed our entire population three times over. We have a very safe, reliable and efficient food supply chain. We need to make sure that it is optimised by taking a whole of food system approach – literally from paddock to plate – in a manner which secures key agricultural production of key inputs such as rice, honey and horticultural products for domestic food processors.” IGA PRIORITY SHOP EXTENDED TO FRONTLINE HEALTH STAFF IGA has extended its Priority Shop delivery service to include eligible frontline healthcare workers. This follows the launch of the service to support elderly, vulnerable or isolated customers by delivering essential grocery packs to their door. To launch the eligibility extension, IGA partnered with St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney to provide 30 healthcare professionals with a Priority Shop pack each week for four weeks. IGA says it wants to thank Australia’s dedicated frontline workers, in hope that access to these boxes will give doctors and nurses at the hospital one less thing to think about each day. “Supporting local communities is at the heart of what each of our 1,400 independently owned and operated IGA stores across the country do, which is why it was clear that we needed to open up this service for those who are working on the frontline during this pandemic,” Metcash Food CEO Scott Marshall said. “We hope it provides some relief for these workers.” IGA has also teamed up with businesses including ride-share services Ola and Uber, with more to come, which will work with retailers to bolster their current delivery offering. “IGA will continue to support its local communities with its Priority Shop boxes for those who have no support and are unable to access essential items,” Mr Marshall said. “We’re pleased to be able to make our Priority Shop offering accessible and available to more Australians.” 16 RETAIL WORLD APR, 2020