The agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, has criticised Australian supermarket giant Woolworths for charging growers to fund a marketing campaign with British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
Woolworths has imposed a levy of 40c a crate on its suppliers to pay for the advertising campaign featuring Oliver.
Joyce joined some consumers and the vegetable growers’ peak body, Ausveg, in questioning the decision.
“Someone is running an advertising campaign to unilaterally say that you’re going to wear the cost of it does seem a bit rich,” he said.
“Unless people have agreed to a cost, in any form of commerce, I think it’s a bit rich to charge them for it.”
Woolworths has defended the levy, saying the fee was voluntary and that the promotion would benefit farmers.
But Ausveg appealed directly to Oliver to intervene, and called Woolworths “churlish” and “belligerent” after the supermarket giant cancelled a meeting between farmers and international buyers after protests grew.
The Ausveg chief executive, Richard Mulcahy, said Woolworths had rescinded on a longstanding commitment to allow international buyers from crucial Asian export markets to visit a distribution centre in Sydney.
“This churlish action by Woolworths is not in the national interest given that both industry and the Australian government have identified expanding export markets as a crucial priority for the future growth of our industry,” he said.
“My staff received a call from a government relations executive at Woolworths [on Thursday] morning informing us the relevant people are ‘no longer available’ for the visit to the distribution centre next week.
“Woolworths are certainly not winning friends in the Australian vegetable industry, nor with customers by taking such a belligerent attitude on matters of such critical importance to our nation.”
For some growers, the additional money expected to take part in Woolworth’s advertising campaign featuring Oliver amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, a spokesman for Ausveg, William Churchill, said.
He said Oliver’s “people” have said they were aware of the situation, but made no further response.
Neither Woolworths nor Oliver responded to requests from Guardian Australia for comment.
