Councillor Mathew Dickerson’s comments come after a Facebook page titled Bring Aldi To Dubbo published several rumours about why the German discount supermarket chain had yet to open a store in Dubbo, despite stores popping up in Mudgee, Bathurst, Young, Orange and one set to open in Parkes.
Several Facebook users who contributed to the page placed the blame squarely on Dubbo City Council.
When contacted by the Daily Liberal, Cr Dickerson said he had already tried to set the record straight on the Facebook page but it appeared his comments had been removed shortly after they were posted.
“I posted that I personally spoke with an ALDI representative on May 1, 2012 and was told by ALDI that council had not stifled ALDI progressing into Dubbo. The company said it was well aware of the potential that Dubbo offered.”
Cr Dickerson said he “got straight from the horse’s mouth” a reiteration from ALDI that its current business model was what was hindering its expansion to Dubbo, not council.
“ALDI owns all of its own trucks and logistics, and their model is such that drivers travel out and back in a single day,” he said.
“The additional distance of Dubbo from Sydney (790-kilometre round trip) as compared with a 530-kilometre round trip to Mudgee and a 708-kilometre round trip to Parkes does not work from a logistics perspective. Dubbo is ‘just over the edge’. At any rate, fatigue laws won’t let them do it.
“ALDI told me they are constantly reviewing their processes so it is not ‘no’ to Dubbo forever but it is until they modify their logistics model.
“I would love ALDI to come to Dubbo. We have said to them, ‘what can we do, legally, to help you come into Dubbo?’ They told us Dubbo hasn’t been struck off the map, but there’s nothing we can do at the moment except keep in constant communication with them in case anything changes.”
Cr Dickerson said he had also posted on the Facebook page a link to council minutes that proved he did not vote against Harris Farm moving to Dubbo, in response to an allegation made by the page’s administrator that he had done so. The mayor said that post had also disappeared.
Source: www.dailyliberal.com.au
Aldi $249 tablets run out in minutes (+ slideshow) - Australian PC World
The North Sydney Aldi store at 8.30am
Special buys German supermarket chain, Aldi, began selling its $249 Bauhn-branded Android tablets across its stores at 8am today but stocks ran out in a matter of minutes.
ARN and PCWorld joined the queue at the Aldi North Sydney store to get a glimpse of the latest gadget and have a chat with prospective buyers.
However, due to a lack of proper ushering, allocation and what appeared to be a stock of only two boxes (not more than 50 tablets in total), many consumers left the store disappointed.
Instead of selling one tablet per customer, people were angered by a few that walked out with two or three tablets in hand.
Some of the consumers that did not manage to get one had been lining up for the device from 8am in the morning.
“I was probably about the 12th person here. They told us that the tablets were racked up at the back but had them at the register. I got all lined up and those that got in front were buying two or three tablets each – I didn’t manage to get one,” Matt Thompson said.
ARN spoke to a few of the people to get a sense of why they were purchasing the 9.7-inch Android tablet.
“I briefly had a look at the specifications and for the price, it’s pretty good. Why should I buy a table for $500 when I can get it for $250?” Satish Nagarajan said.
An elderly customer mentioned that he was purchasing the tablet to keep up to date with the technologies available in the market.
“The last time I looked at a computer was two years ago. I don’t have the technical knowledge like many do and I need to educate myself. I previously bought other gadgets from Aldi and it’s just as good as those you get from mainstream vendors,” Herbert Hager, saied.
Another customer, Stan Nigelo, mentioned that he was purchasing the device to use while he commutes to and from work.
“I got my own computer to use at work and at home, so it’s just for reading stuff on the bus,” he said.
Bauhn is an Aldi trademark.
The device runs Google's latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0.
It features 16GB of internal memory, two megapixel rear-facing camera, 1GHz single-core Amlogic Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM and a microSD card slot for memory expansion.
One customer said that he bought the tablet because he prefers the Android operating system, and this tablet was the cheapest Android available in the market.
“With the iPad, you don’t stop spending. The tablet is over-priced to begin with, then you keep spending for many of the applications,” Martin Bregozzo said.
The tablet is available from all Aldi stores over the counter - if there any stocks left.
Ross Catanzariti contributed to this report
Source: www.pcworld.idg.com.au
Morrisons signs deal to get home-bred lamb in stores - scotsman.com
Up TO 1,500 Suffolk lambs per week will be bought by supermarket giant Morrisons in the latest of its deals to put branded traditional breeds of meat on its shelves.
The deal – announced on the eve of the Scotsheep event, which is being held today at Morrisons farm, Dumfries House – follows similar agreements it made for Shorthorn bred beef and Berkshire-bred pigmeat.
The deal will also see a pricing mechanism put in place which should reward producers supplying the lamb. Since its introduction last autumn, about 400 beef producers in the UK who are supplying Shorthorn beef are currently getting 20p per kilo above the market rate.
Commenting on the Suffolk lamb deal, which starts this autumn, Andrew Loftus, Morrisons’ farm operations manager, said the company had been working with Suffolk sires on their own farm for three years now and the breed was an obvious choice.
“The extra confidence we hope this product gives to our farmers will be very welcome. It will also add another superb product to our butcher’s counter and we’re confident our customers will love it.”
Dr Lewis McClinton, chief executive of the Suffolk Sheep Society, who will control the scheme, said he was delighted the supermarket had committed to include Suffolk lamb in their Traditional Range.
The Morrison announcement came on the same day that NFU Scotland gave the retailer top marks for it support of the home lamb trade.
NFUS president Nigel Miller played “secret shopper” to check the source of lamb in six supermarket chains to gauge the current levels of support for Scottish, British and imported lamb.
His findings – albeit from a small-scale sample – showed Morrisons had total commitment to British lamb. The next best of the majors was Sainsburys, which also showed an “encouraging” amount of Scotch lamb on its shelves.
In other retailers visited, Scotch lamb was available on the butchery counters but no Scotch lamb was clearly identified in the meat aisles, and while British lamb was for sale, imported lamb from New Zealand and Australia still made up the bulk of lamb packs on the shelves.
NFUS is now calling on all major supermarkets to up their support for Scotch lamb in the coming months and use this season’s starting price levels to reposition lamb in the consumer’s shopping basket.
Miller said: “This year’s lamb market has opened up with a substantial readjustment in prices and that has left many producers feeling jittery.
“With the lamb markets re-balancing from the highs of recent years, and euro uncertainty affecting export opportunities, a higher level of commitment from supermarkets to home-produced product early in the season has the potential to generate the confidence and stability needed on farm.”
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Print this pageSource: www.scotsman.com
Punters gobble up Aldi tablet - CRN Australia
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Proves demand for low-end devices - but what about top tier? Consumers have turned out in droves for a bargain-bin Android tablet selling in limited supply at supermarket chain Aldi. The $249 Android tablet was advertised as a “special limited buy” by ...Source: www.crn.com.au
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