No sympathy for Visy on this one...

Tell anyone who has had anything to do with printing boxes and see if they act surprised. The cartel in cardboard boxes is a rort that everyone in the design industry has been aware of for years.

From my perspective, this cartel has been damaging the image of Australian fruit growers overseas fo years.

Consider this. I went to Italy in the last few years as part of a trade mission to investigate packaging and branding. It was devastating on a number of fronts.

Firstly, I was taken by one of the largest packing houses to a cool room to show me Australian Produce. There they were...boxes crumpled in the corner. The packaging had not withstood the sea journey and was leaking the contents onto the floor. This was typical of the packaging and the state it arrived.

They want to do business with us...its just that we don't make the grade.

Secondly, an Italian distributor showed me these beautifully made full colour boxes and specially designed lids. When I asked him how much it has cost him to have it printed he said, just one dollar per box. There was not one gram of recycled paper. It was strong and perfectly printed and designed.

The reason why the Australian product loses its edge on the international front is from this cartel in packaging.

For one dollar the Australian growers can only expect a weak box with high recycle content and poorly printed in spot colours. (Designers even have to allow a 5mm poor printing margin for error)

Compared to any other first world country Australia's packaging is inferior and looks shabby on arrival because of it.

Our growers could not afford, nor should they have be paying the price this cartel was asking. As a result, thisd cartel isw packaging products affected our export industry and Australia's image abroad.

No sympathy from me guys....I am on the side of the growers…I hope you learned your lesson, so we can start the process of rebuilding our export image overseas.