Dick Smith Foods out of business just announced in the news, discuss…
Dick Smith Foods out of Business
onetwothreefour on 26/07/2018 - 12:07
Last edited 26/07/2018 - 12:18 by 1 other user
Last edited 26/07/2018 - 12:18 by 1 other user
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But but…
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie!!!Lizards have feeling too…
Just a small correction. He stocked Australian electronics, but reduced tariffs in the early 70s meant the local industry was not competitive. Also the electronics were sourced from Japan and not China. Even in 1982 when Dick Smith sold his business very little electronics manufacturing was done in China. Japan dominated, with Hong Kong and Taiwan a distant second.
You're right i'd assumed the China dimension, though i was aware of the tariff factor. Cheers.
Unbelievable that people are cheering DSF's demise. So short sighted.
If you think this doesn't affect you because you're not a farmer you're sorely mistaken.
"We have 14% youth unemployment and over 20% youth underemployment – that is, where our young people can’t get a proper full time career".
I have no sympathy for Mr Smith.
He, along with Gerry Harvey is an advocate of high price and demand the locals to buy their products just because it's local.
Using his analogy of peanut butter that can be had for a lot cheaper via Aldi, he then accused the buyer of not supporting Australian but the buyer may have other priorities such as spending less so can afford to feed the family more.
This logic goes missing from Mr Smith. While yes buying Australian means buying jobs, but that also invites complacency and now that complacency is finally catching up with him.
If there is any lesson to be learn, it is that you never stop innovating and never be complacent.
People hate Dick Smith as he is part of the old man business whinging club headed by no other than Gerry Harvey.
Dick food, na!
Foreign foods taste better and are cheaper anyway.
Why do we need inferior Australian foods?
It’s better we just import everything from overseas
Inferior? What about supporting Australian farmers? I guess you don't care about Australians having jobs.
Are you for real?
Oz is known for it's top rated food production.
You eating Malaysian noodles all day punk?
Didn't he say we are overpopulated anyway? So what does he care about "Australians"?
He wants to limit immigration to ensure a sustainable future for Australia. Seems quite reasonable to me.
From my understanding it's already pretty difficult to get into Australia, there's tough requirements. I know people who work two jobs here, no police record and nice people, who can't get permanent residency.
It didn't help that his slogan was essentially "eat dick".
He never gave anyone reason to buy his crap, and plenty of reasons not to do so. A capitalist bleating about unfair free markets, now I've heard everything!
the vibe i got from him was, if you didn't buy his products you were un-Australian. now that's a pretty un-Australian thing to say and no doubt rubbed some of us the wrong way.
Sex sells!
Dick Smith should have taken out billboards (Clive Palmer style) with a picture of his naked body covered in Ozemite with a slogan Eat Tasty Local Dick.
Dick should have learnt from the Queen of sexual innuendo Nigella Lawson when describing his products. Words such as Firm, ripe, young, tight, long, hard were all missing from his packaging.
Not surprised. I called it before the announcement.
I just found the whole DSF sussy. Claiming no one bought products when stores had supply issues. You don't continuously sell out of a product that no one buys.
New box Monday out of stock by Thursday. Then having to wait 2 weeks to restock.Nearly all products DSF made now has an Australian made + owned + supplier equivalent. Fractioning the market does what exactly? Wouldn't make more sense to invest in them then compete?
Here are the brand replacements
Jams - Beerenberg
Ozemite and peanut butter - Vegemite and bega peanut butter. Bega bought them from Kraft
Squeezy Tomato sauce - Rosella Australian owned company bought them when it was about to close.
Honey - Beechworth^ Note personal taste may mean some of these above are eww to you.
But personally I thought DSFs jams where pretty mediocre. I did like the product that I wasn't able to buy because no one bought it.Drinking chocolate, breakfast cereal and water crackers. Seem to be the only real looses. As I'm not aware of any Australian owned made supplied equivalent.
I believe it's more hey lets close down as we are redundant.
But instead of being seen as going out gracefully lets attack someone I don't like as it's way more fun.Have a look at Spudshed in WA - an Australian company owned by a local potato farmer that now has 9 stores (with more on the way) that sells mainly Aussie produce, is open 24/7 and pays their workers relatively well. Go to one of their stores on a Saturday morning and it's packed. They have a huge Bottleshop in Jandakot that mainly stocks and promotes WA wine
They compete successfully with Colesworth and IGA, so it can be done
he's pulling out because he couldn't go the distance?
Perhaps there is a new market for him after all. DICK SMITH locally made penis pumps for the mature Male.
Just two words, Good Riddance!
The Smiths - representing true blue Aussies - has always been against foreign competition, not once but many times throughout Australian history. They're just simply scared of competition.
His 3 loyal customers will surely miss that unappetizing packaging.
Are they the same ones who feature in every ACA report when he was flogging his food.
The only way he could compete was pulling on heart strings.
I never tried any of the products, mainly due to the packaging and cost.
Also the products he was shelving, I imagine people would choose a similar product that is on offer. I.e not a lot of people have a loyalty to their peanut butter brand.
And going up against vegemite is probably the worst entrenched aussie brand to try and claw market share from.
A bit rich from dick smith considering he got rich off the sale of his business, which sold goods not made in Australia.
I think that Dick was good for Australia in the beginning, but became disconnected with his grand media gestures that few could stomach over the years. I understood DSF to simply be a vehicle to offer Australian foods with profit to charity and I appreciated that. Still don't like the guy.
Bit out of touch - must have spent a little too much time cocooned at his Terry Hills estate.
I used to buy the "bush foods breakfast" cereal from dick smith, it was really good - but then they changed who was making it and it now tastes like bland horrible crap. If their other foods are like this I'm not surprised in the slightest by the closure.
Life learned lesson, never brand your stuff or any of your business 'Dick Smith'….
Buyout by kogan
I will always buy Aussie products to support Australian jobs.
Its simply not true to say Australians buy only the cheapest products.
Many of us value and buy products made from Aussie ingredients and made in Australia. Look at all the products with our branded flag on them as a positive attribute , this is phenomenon unique to Australia.
The reality is many of dicks products were horribly branded and/or just didn't taste as good as there alternatives which are also Australian made products.I found both his jam and peanut butter nasty.
But I will always buy jam and peanut butter made from Aussie nuts and fruit.He's as sad as Gerry Harvey. His business goes down the shitter and he blames everyone else except himself.
I overheard that Gerry Harvey was pissed that he did not get the first chance to publicly blame Aldi first for his business mistakes.
Instead Gerry not to be outdone by Dick Smith will be on ACA (as he routinely does) this week complaining that the foreigners Ikea and Costco are stealing his buyers with their inferior products.
Don't blame ALDI and China - blame consumers who buys cheap and don't support local jobs; pay a bit more and more people in Australia will have jobs and who will have money to buy more, hopefully, locally manufactured goods.
Generally speaking.
Are people sick of Supermarkets flogging cheap Asian food for a Premium price?
Considering how poorly the workers are paid I refuse to pay the supermarket the rip off price.
The only difference between sourcing the same product from your local Asian food store (much cheaper) is that it may lack English text but if the contents are identical who cares.
Screw Dick Smith.
There's a lot of groupies for this prat, but the reality is quite different.
He made his initial bucket of money selling imported electronics from China. OK, fine so far.
He kicked off Australian Geographic, built it up, but he also requested and received a shed-load of donations as part of that claiming he'd spend it on the environment (it was all very vague), but before he did he sold the lot to Fairfax, effectively pocketing it all in the sale price.
His "Dick Smith Foods" is BS. He doesn't produce anything. He just sat at his desk licensing his face and name to actual manufacturers, who of course had to pay a fee. Sure he ran marketing as part of all that, but the individual producers paid through the nose for it. This all just adds another layer of BS which impacts pricing - it's part of the reason his stuff was so expensive.
When Aldi started and declined to stock product that he'd licensed his face and name to, as they were perfectly entitled to do, he came out and compared them to Nazis. WTF? This is why he hates Aldi so much, as they chose not to play ball with his BS. And why would they? - that's not how their business operates. He's been bullying them for years without success.
Now he's trying to tie his recent problems to claims of "extreme capitalism". No Dick, it's just your bog-standard competition and you've been out-classed. Go to your corner and have a cry.
The ones that will really pay for his failures is the actual manufacturers that now need to make arrangements in terms of new packaging etc, and sorting out how to get it all to the retailer. No words of sympathy for those poor bastards from Dick, just a whimper about a few people he employs around his desk.
This calm and considered message approved by AngryChicken