Aid group slams Coles

By Shaun Inguanzo
‘DISGUSTING’ is how Springvale aid volunteers describe a supermarket chain rejecting emergency food vouchers.
The Springvale Benevolent Society say Greater Dandenong’s poorest people will find life even harder when Coles Supermarkets begins rejecting food vouchers the society has used for more than 20 years.
The Springvale Benevolent Society has written a scathing letter to Coles Myer after the retail giant told the society from 1 September it would refuse to accept food vouchers.
The society has shopped with Coles for more than 20 years.
The blow follows the society’s call for more emergency relief and community support as revealed in Star last month.
Springvale Benevolent Society treasurer Brian Pullen said the society spent $25,000 each year at Coles supermarkets in a partnership that saw Coles credit a benevolent society account and have it repaid within 30 days.
Mr Pullen said Coles now wanted the society to purchase its supermarket vouchers to use at the store.
But he said the Benevolent Society would instead boycott the supermarket chain.
“To think we have done so much for the community and we had a reasonable partnership going for years,” he said.
“Now it just gets trashed in one month.”
Greater Dandenong councillors Roz Blades and Alan Gordon this week said they were appalled by Coles’s decision and would campaign for change.
“It is discriminatory,” Cr Blades said.
“The problem facing the benevolent society is that we can’t just buy vouchers.
“You have to call on the family and assess the situation first.”
Cr Gordon said Coles was out of touch with the community.
“This change will mean clients in need will have to travel further to purchase goods at supporting Safeway and IGA supermarkets.”
Coles Supermarkets spokesman Jim Cooper said the company would look into the upfront payment issue facing the benevolent society.
But he said the change needed to happen because the Coles Myer company had moved away from paper-based vouchers.
Mr Cooper said the gift cards – swiped like credit cards – would still come with restrictions that disallow poor people to spend the money on alcohol and tobacco products.
But he refused to comment on the society’s boycott of Coles supermarkets.