Recently, someone told me that Harris Farm Markets – where I regularly do my groceries, was in fact owned by Coles.

At first I was sceptical, but without the resources to check at the time, and my source being a friend, I assumed they were right.

And they’re not the only person who has told me this. Since then, it’s actually been something that sat in the back of my mind, and I thought about it a bit. Finally, I decided to do some research of my own. What did literally two minutes of research and a quick email to Harris Farm turn up? That this rumour was exactly that – a tall tale, and I’m glad to report, far from the truth. One of the Harris clan was quick to get back to me about what Harris Farm does to keep things local and sustainable, and his enthusiasm was clear from his first response! As he pointed out, the Harris family and their business are not friends with huge supermarket giants like Coles and Woolworths. And to be frank, anyone that’s pushing the boundaries against these organisations that are currently dominating food supply in Australia, are doing something good in my book.

Harris farm currently grows all their Chinese veggies in the Sydney Basin (at Kemps Creek near the Lighthorse Interchange), which is where other great organisations such as FoodConnect also source their fresh produce. This means that these veggies can be out of the dirt and into the store within 15 hours with minimal transport and virtually no energy spent on cooling. While Harris Farm were one of the first supermarkets to encourage the use of re-useable shopping bags, this year they had a massive movement to reduce the use of plastic bags by the customers. Rather than charge for the bag, as a growing number of supermarkets and stores are now doing (and as has been done in Europe for many years), they actually PAID for customers NOT to use bags. As Tristan from Harris Farm explained:

For every customer who did NOT use a bag we donated 5c to Clean up Australia. We raised $50k and so far have reduced our bag usage by about 4 million bags.  We offer cardboard boxes to customers to use instead of bags – after doing it for a while my whole family honestly believe it is FAR better than using bags as it protects your fruit much better than the bags do anyway.

They also recycle all their Styrofoam boxes, something that very few retailers do, and all those boxes not used by conscientious shoppers are recycled by Harris Farm. The company continues to reduce their energy usage, particularly in new stores where changes are more easily implemented. They’re currently looking at developing a next-gen store which will cut their power bill and emissions even further. What I found particularly encouraging was that Harris Farm had happily discovered that most of the environmental programs which they are initiating are in fact reducing costs, rather than increasing costs.

It is a common misconception that making improvements in ones life in terms of becoming more sustainable needs to be costly in some way, but the truth is that many initiatives and day to day actions can be cost free and priceless in terms of their benefits for the global environment. The movement to create sustainable and positive environmental change is very much about education and action, and Harris Farm is doing many of these things. Building relationships with suppliers who are focusing on the same goals, and talking about ways of making positive changes are all steps in making far-reaching impacts. When I went out to visit a pork and potato farm earlier in the year, I was really excited to hear about the integration of both the pigs and potatoes – the pigs would essentially clean and fertilise the soil in which the potatoes had grown, creating a fresh field for new growth. So I thought it was absolutely awesome when I heard the following story about Brookfarm Musli.

They had a problem with rats eating the macadamia nuts on their farm. They were baiting and baiting with no true improvement. Then they regrew some rainforest stands in the middle of their farm and introduced a pair of breeding owls (who eat the rats).  The rats damage was almost eliminated so the crop yield went up AND they don’t spend anything on baits anymore.

While I’m not suggesting that Harris farm is the sole solution, nor that everything they do is 100% sustainable or problem free, but for those of us that do shop at shopping hubs and super markets, they’re most definitely a better option than the big two who are continuing to dictate and dominate.

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About the author

Lara Ihnatowicz

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