Billion dollar fresh food sales has Woolworths pouring money into regional stores

The business, Australia's largest retailer, is also pouring money into partnerships with farmers in a bid to secure the supply it needs to maintain its record of 100 per cent Australian sourcing of fresh meat, eggs and milk and 96pc of fresh fruit and vegetables.

This year marks more than 90 years for Woolworths in regional Australia and its 2022 financial year figures paint the picture of a company that plays a substantial role in the lives of those outside cities.

Regional customers accounted for 32pc of Woolworths business this year - an increase of 3pc since the 2019 financial year.

There are now 400 Woolies supermarkets, Big W stores and distribution centres in regional areas, employing 48000 people and paying $1.5 billion in wages annually.

On the agricultural commodity front, the purchases have been enormous, as reported in the company's Regional Report 2022.

A massive $2.4 billion in meat was purchased, which includes 157 million kilograms of beef from more than 2500 producers in the company's red meat supply chain.

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Chicken purchases added up to an incredible 174m kilograms; lamb 39m kilograms and pork 57m kilograms.

Ten thousand tonnes of seafood, or $274m worth, was sold and every prawn was Australian.

In the fruit and vegetable aisle, 995m kilograms of Australian produce, worth $3.6b, went out, while Woolies managed to sell 1.1 billion eggs.

Even plant-based proteins got a mention in the report, with sales from 600 different products adding up to $361m.

Woolworths chief executive officer Brad Banducci's said the company had an important role to play in the population shift happening in Australia at the moment.

"We are seeing a growing number of Australians move from cities to regional areas as hybrid work has become more accessible - this is a welcome trend," he said.

"Over the next five years, we have an investment pipeline of over $250m in regional developments and store renewals to help boost local amenity and enhance livability in regional communities."

In the past financial year, Woolworths 'renewed' 22 existing regional supermarkets, meaning the stores underwent renovations to refresh and update the customer offering. The upgrades involved a range of improvements, from the introduction of direct-to-boot pays, to new fresh service counters and modernised interiors.

Woolies is known for offering young people a start and in regional areas this year, that amounted to employing more than 16,500 people under the age of 25.

Overall, an additional 3000 regional team members were employed year-on-year.

Its partnering with suppliers was also highlighted in the Regional Report 2022.

With the remit of helping dairy farmers invest in farms for the future, a $5m Woolworths Dairy Innovation Fund was launched in 2021.

The report said grants from the fund have supported on-farm improvements like rolling out herd monitoring collars or introducing new in-line milk sensor technology to help tailor feed and herd management.

"We're also partnering with conventional and organic fruit and vegetable growers to help them start a journey to organic farming or grow existing organic production," Mr Banducci said.

"Our Woolworths Organic Growth Fund has provided more than $7.3m in funding support to 22 Australian farmers, including a $500,000 grant to Red Plateau Organic Produce, who are using their grant to rebuild after the devastating 2019 fires and invest in increased avocado production."

In FY22, Woolworths contributed more than $5.2m to disaster relief partners, donated by staff and customers in the wake of the devastating floods.

Using those funds, The Salvation Army and Foodbank were able to serve almost 900,000 meals to those affected and Rural Aid was able to provide essential stock feed, water and counselling services to impacted farmers while Lifeline answered a call for help from more than 9000 people.

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