A DAIRY farmer’s online campaign urging Coles and Aldi to abandon their cheap milk prices is gathering speed.
Fifth-generation dairy farmer from Kingaroy, Damien Tessmann, started the campaign to get Coles and Aldi to end $1-per-litre milk prices “through the power of social media”.
After Woolworths ended its $1 milk prices last week, there has been a strong call for the other big supermarkets to follow suit.
Mr Tessman started the Facebook group C’mon Coles, where he shared a video calling for other dairy farmers to share their stories, and urged consumers to boycott Coles and Aldi.
Across all media platforms, the video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
“I think it’s one of these things where it’s important to be grassroots and farmer driven,” Mr Tessmann said.
“I want to do something to communicate with consumers and to make sure they vote with their wallets.
“It really is that David-and-Goliath battle.
“It’s (the response) really been overwhelming and it’s really about keeping that pressure on. I think people really do want to help farmers, I don’t buy into that city/country divide.”
The Likes on the C’mon Coles Facebook page have been growing organically, according to Mr Tessmann.
“It’s started off here in Kingaroy and I often look at (Facebook) notifications of where people are coming from. There was one this morning from Western Australia.
“It’s really great that we’ve got this far from just a farmer posting a video.”
Mr Tessmann and a group of other dairy farmers took a cow and stood outside Aldi in Kenmore, talking to consumers.
“All demographics had positive things to say about the dairy industry and our cause,” he said.
“It really warms my heart that consumers in metropolitan Australia want to help us out.”
Mr Tessmann has been in the dairy industry all his life.
“It’s something that consumes you,” he said.
“When you’re on the land in a particular industry, you become really passionate about it.
“Dairy farmers are renowned for being on the shy side, so it’s great to see farmers getting passionate and involved and that’s what’s keeping me going.”
The C’mon Coles Facebook page has received 1600 Likes so far.
Kilcoy dairy farmer, Ashley Harrison, has also gotten behind the campaign and shared a video on the page.
But Mr Tessmann said other diary farmers had been hesitant.
“There has been some reluctance from Norco suppliers,” he said.
“It’s horrible that they think there will be a backlash from Coles if they openly jump on this campaign.
“That’s been the feedback from half a dozen farmers.
“I think that’s really sad about the state of the dairy industry.”
Mr Tessman said the next step in the campaign was to keep the momentum going.
“It’s about keeping that pressure on, but it all comes down to consumers. They’re our biggest weapon in this battle.
“It’s been a deafening silence from Coles. We’ve been tagging them in all our posts.
“Woolworths responded and said ‘thank you for your support and we understand how important the dairy industry is’.
“Coles can’t even return a tweet to say ‘this is what we’re doing’.”
Source: weeklytimesnow.com.au
