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My morning hunting and gathering foray at Footscray market [that's Melbourne Jeremy] today revealed a very curious un/seasonal treat.
These very fine looking? cherries at a quite reasonable price? packed in cute dinky boxes labeled
Fresh Tasmanian Cherries Class 1 Grown and Packed by Tas Valley Orchards?The very helpful sales people reassured me that they were from "America" and so are very good indeed.
Now I'm used to fake Prada and fake Nike but Californian cherries masquerading as Tasmanian?
Does anybody know if Tas Valley Orchards is real and someone has just got the boxes and re packaged them or if the boxes are fakes? Or has Tas Valley worked out a way of storing cherries till winter?
Steve are you involved in this Cygnet conspiracy?
Tas Valley seems to originate at Cygnet?
....
8 comments:
Nice sleuth work Dr Biron, you foiled me again! I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids & that darned Scooby Doo!
Curious about the cherries. In fact all the cherry trees down here in Cygnet & I suspect all over the state are completely bare, the season well & trully over.
I suspect one of three things could explain this.
1. That the cherries have been cold stored until mid year(not likely)
2. That Tas Valley Orchards are acting as negotiants & supplying imported cherries, in this case Californian, to keep up with demand(not likely)
3. Or someone made an honest mistake with the boxes, its quite easy to get Tasmanian & Californian mixed up as both words end in 'NIAN'.(quite probably)
I could never suggest that someone was actually being dishonest here, selling a product that clearly it wasn't.
I also note that Coles are selling nationally, imported Californian cherries for $13.98kg
I wouoldn't touch em myself. However it does highlight that our exported cherries ALSO travel huge distances to reach markets in the off season, an unsavoury fact that is rarely mentioned by those spruiking the locavore issue.
Heres the TAS Valley number if anyone cares to enquire:
'Please Explain?'
03 6295 1922
tasvalley@bigpond.com
Nice work George, Cheers
I work for one of the largest fruit marketers/growers in Australia, and can assure you that those cherries are were not cold stored, and TAS Valley were simply marketing imported cherries they would not be packed in those boxes. Honest mistake? Call me a cynic, but such mistakes are not easily made.
Rest assured Anonymous we are on your side and on the case. The ACCC are informed and looking at it as a the major papers but the mainstream press needs time to catch up and investigate thoroughly
Let them know your information as soon as possible.
Any one seen anything similar out there at the moment?
Up date:
Still being sold in different generic Produce of Australia Boxes.
Tip of Iceberg.
Update July 17
Now selling in Cherryhill.com.au marked boxes? Que?
George did you ever get to the bottom of this? There are cherries on sale everywhere in Sydney at the moment but all clearly identified as product of America.
Hi Alison
Seems like there are a lot of empty Product of Australia 2 kg cherry boxes being filled from bulk imported American/Canadian cherries. The Tas Valley boxes have disappeared but still some Cherry Hill boxes being used.
Have a look at the small boxes in Sydney. I suspect that they just dont send the small boxes with the cherries so local ones are used.
It raises a few other packaging questions. I used to think that the stickers on fruit were a PINTArse but now thats the only way you can tell where fruit comes from.
A result at last, the boxes previously marked "PRODUCT OF AUSTRALIA" now read just PRODUCT OF
so the printers have responded by altering the markings on the boxes.
Thats one for the good guys.
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