A NEW campaign to promote Australian frozen vegetables and make it easier for consumers to buy Australian grown was launched in Tasmania last week.
The $500,000 campaign, jointly funded by Simplot - owner of Birds Eye - and the Tasmanian Government, through the 2007 vegetable industry strategic plan, aims to maintain the state's dwindling vegetable-processing industry.
Last November, Canadian-owned McCain revealed plans to close its factory at Smithton and shift to New Zealand in 12 months, which will cost 200 jobs and affect 100 growers who supplied $20 million worth of beans, peas, carrots, cauliflowers and broccoli last year.
The move will leave Simplot as the last processor of frozen vegetables in Australia.
Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association commodities manager Nick Steel said the new campaign aimed to make it easier for consumers to buy Australian-grown frozen vegetables.
The new packaging features the faces of five growers: Stuart Greenhill (onions); Stewart McGee (peas); Tony Perry (carrots); Matt Ryan (cauliflower); and Colin Chaplin (beans).
Two of the 15 products in the Birds Eye range, broccoli florets and brussels sprouts, will not be rebadged because they contain imported vegetables.
Mr Steel said it was important to maintain a vegetable-processing industry in Tasmania.
"The main aim is to give the consumer the choice," he said.
Simplot Australia managing director Terry O'Brien told last week's launch that surveys had found more than 90 per cent of consumers preferred Australian-grown frozen vegetables and regarded them as superior to imported produce.
Fair Dinkum Food campaigner Richard Bovill said it was now up to consumers to buy the locally grown products they said they wanted.
"It's pretty much do or die. If we can't make it work, when it's gone we will only be able to get imported food and that's a pretty scary prospect for a first-world country," he said.
