Zoe Lamont has stopped selling to supermarkets altogether. Photo: Supplied.
A Wagga farmer who stopped selling to supermarkets will join local producers to establish a fresh food co-op, which will open its doors in Central Wagga later this year.
Zoe Lamont was forced to reconsider her ready-made meals supply service Farm Door Riverina’s business model after food and manufacturing costs soared post-COVID.
As a consumer, she saw prices go up at supermarket chains which recorded $1.1 billion in profit in the 2024/25 financial year.
But as a supplier, the price they were paying her stayed the same, forcing her to operate at a loss.
“They just use small businesses like a bank,” she said.
“We were selling to mid-tier supermarkets [not Coles or Woolies], but they all do the same thing.”
She felt as if she was being treated as an afterthought. There were issues with invoices being skipped or being paid based on goods sold, regardless of their internal stock management.
There were also problems with contacting accounts departments.
“The supermarkets are posting these huge profits, but they’re passing that on to their shareholders, not their suppliers,” she said.
“We ran at a loss for a while, but you can’t do that as a small family business.”
Farm Door Riverina sells ready-made meals. Photo: Supplied.
Frustrated, she decided to cut out the middle man completely and pivoted to selling to consumers directly. While she saw an initial loss, the business has since recovered.
Now she has partnered with producers from around the region in the Riverina Good Food Weekend, with “pretty much everyone” involved set to form a permanent co-op called The Growers Hub.
The Growers Hub is set to open its doors in Central Wagga in October, and will be a permanent farmers’ market where 100 per cent of the profits go back to local producers in our food bowl.
Ms Lamont believes rolling the Thursday Producers’ Market and Saturday Wollundry market into one permanent space “just makes sense” and hopes this will make it more convenient for the community to support local in their weekly grocery shop.
“We ship all our food out, and then we ship it back in again; that is ridiculous,” she said.
“So for our health, [food freshness], our wallets and the planet, this makes sense. Everyone wins.”
She believes there’s a place for big businesses, but there has to be a mix of big and small businesses for a healthy and diverse market.
“We’re not telling everyone not to sell to supermarkets,” she said.
“We are just saying, ‘Let’s create a market that’s direct to consumers to protect our smaller growers and regional food manufacturers’.
“What we’re trying to do is get the community to shop at this supermarket where the money goes 100 per cent to the growers and vendors.”
Tickets for the Riverina Good Food Weekend can be purchased from the Farm Door Riverina website.
More information on Growers Hub will be coming soon.
