MORE than 800,000 cans of pineapple weighing 1.1 million kilos, filling 50 semitrailers and valued at $3 million are bound for Australia’s homeless community thanks to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The watchdog has ordered US company Heinz, which acquired Golden Circle in 2008, to stop selling products labeled “proudly Australian owned” – so thousands of tonnes of wrongly labeled cans of pineapple have to be disposed of, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
The winners are the poor and destitute, who will now be enjoying the versatile fruit after it was handed over to charity Foodbank Australia last week.
“They said, ‘Have we got something for you!”’ Foodbank chief executive John Webster said with a laugh. “There’s literally 1000 pallet loads of sliced pineapple, diced pineapple, crushed pineapple, pineapple in sweetened juices, unsweetened juices and also juice by itself.
“This is just magic product … if you think of any number of meals where you can use pineapple – it can be used in any of the three meals of the day and of course it’s shelf-stable. It’s easy to use in the welfare agencies and get out to the people in need.” Webster said Foodbank distributed 17 million kilos of unwanted food from supermarkets, warehouses and factories every year to homeless people through charities and shelters.
“This will certainly be our single largest donation, unless we get another wonderful surprise,” he said.
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