AS ITS products disappear from Woolworths shelves outside Victoria and Tasmania, a Donald biscuit manufacturer is making a play for a slice of the online market.
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Just two weeks after Woolworths told Kooka’s Country Cookies their biscuits would no longer be stocked outside the two southern states, the company has signed up with online retailer MegaFresh.
The website matches shoppers directly with Australian farmers and manufacturers, circumventing supermarkets and returning more profit to the supplier.
Farmers and manufacturers deliver their produce to the MegaFresh warehouse, from which it is delivered to online shoppers.
Kooka’s sales manager Kerry Vogel said the move was “something a bit different” for the 23-year-old company and hoped it could patch the revenue gap left by Woolworths.
“I think a lot of people are going that way now, ordering online, and they're looking to buy Australian products,” she said. “We have changed with the times, and we'll keep changing with the times.”
Kooka’s requested a review of the Woolworths decision but Ms Vogel said she was unable to change the minds of supermarket bosses. MegaFresh founder Alex Stefan said producers were both being “given a fair go by the big companies who act as gate keepers between the producers and consumers”.
“With the technology that we now have, it shouldn’t be necessary for producers to have to sell via antiquated methods,” he said.
He said the model could also reduce the amount of food going to waste.
Woolworths this month said cutting Kooka’s products was in response to customer behaviour, with 90 per cent of biscuit sales occurring in Victoria and Tasmania.