This Week in the Market – Edition 59

In today’s This week in the Market, we announce Christmas trading hours, summer stone fruit point of sale for greengrocers and discuss forklift incident in the Market.

At the Market

Christmas trading hours announced  

Wednesday 23 December 3:30am – 7:00am

Thursday 24 December 3:30am – 7:00am

Friday 25 December CLOSED

Christmas Day public Holiday Saturday 26 December CLOSED

Monday 28 December CLOSED

Boxing Day public holiday Tuesday 29 December 3:30am – 7:00am

Friday 1 January CLOSED New Year’s Day public holiday

*Note: If a public holiday falls on either a Monday or a Tuesday, fruit and vegetable market trading on the following day will commence at 3:30am

Your chance to own a piece of Market history – and all for a good cause!

Now’s your chance to own an iconic image of the trading floor at the West Melbourne Market!

We have three large images up for auction.

These are:

2 x 200cm wide by 150cm tall Canvas prints BID NOW

1 x 180cm wide by 118cm tall Perspex print BID NOW

You can view the auction items on display at tenancy 70 from Wednesday 18 November. Then head over to our ebay store to place your bid!

The auction will close on Thursday 26 November, 2015.

All proceeds from the Auction will be donated to the Northern Health Foundation. For more details on the Foundation visit http://www.nhfoundation.org.au.

Don’t miss out on your chance to have one of these great images. All three prints are ready to hang in your home, warehouse or office.

Forklift incident at the Market 

As I’m sure many of you are already aware, at 5.26am last Thursday morning, a forklift operator noticed an emission from the forklift they were operating. The forklift was on fire and the operator immediately vacated the forklift. The LPG tank on the forklift subsequently exploded.

Melbourne Market Authority staff immediately secured the area and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) were on site by 5.33am to extinguish the fire.

There were no injuries or other damage to property reported, although the forklift was destroyed. WorkSafe have been on-site investigating the incident and the forklift owner has been assisting with WorkSafe’s investigation.

This is a timely reminder to all forklift owners and operators that they must ensure that all of their forklifts are properly serviced and maintained by a suitably qualified technician.

Industry News

Summer stone fruit point of sale

This year Australian Summer fruit’s campaign tagline is ‘Love Em Now’ – inspiring consumers to get ‘stuck into ’Aussie peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. Along with a PR and media campaign, marketing activities include point of sale material for greengrocers to use throughout the season. The kits include:

• 4 x A3 posters (one for each fruit)
• Trade flyer
• Recipe booklet.

The recipes are very simple and easy to make dishes including a plum galette; apricot biscotti trifle; nectarine salad; roast duck with plum compote; peach popsicles, pork and nectarine sliders and a peach salsa.

National healthy eating partnership to increase Australia’s fruit and vegetable consumption

Rural Health Minister Fiona Nash has announced a new partnership of preventative health groups, food industry bodies and government to cooperatively tackle obesity and encourage healthy eating. The Partnership will have its first meeting on November 13 in Canberra. Attendees will include the Public Health Association, the Heart Foundation, the Australian Food and Grocery Council representing packaged food companies and the quick service restaurants, Woolworths, Metcash (owner of IGA), Coles; the Dieticians Association of Australia, AusVeg, which represents 9000 vegetable growers, Dairy Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia.

“Governments can’t force-feed healthy food to people,” Minister Nash said.

“We can however educate them to make their own healthy choices and take responsibility for what they eat. Australians under-consume fresh fruit and vegetables and this presents a dual opportunity – increasing consumption of fresh produce would benefit both consumer health and Australian farmers.”

Did you know?

As a Market user, you are required to have a valid access card visibly displayed on you at all times. Display armband card holders are available at no cost from a Market Relations Officer or pick one up from the Customer Service Centre from 4.00 am to 11.30 am Monday – Friday. Don’t get caught out, pick yours up now.

Key dates

Parking inquiries

5.00 am to 9.00 Monday and Thursday

MMA staff answer parking allocation queries and take payments for parking in Store 78 across from the Customer Service Centre on the Fruit and Veg Buyers’ Walk.