Italian canned tomato in the crosshair of the Australia’s Antidumping Commission. The new investigation has been prompted by Australian tomato processor SPC Ardmona, which lodged an application to the Australian Government, against what the company claims to be dumping of TWO Italian canned tomatoes companies: La Doria and Feger di Gerardo Ferraioli. They represent over 50 per cent of the product coming in and are key suppliers to Australia’s leading supermarkets Coles and Woolworths.
Dumping is when a product is sold in Australia at margins below what it is sold for in its home country. Last year, the commission found 103 of 105 Italian exporters were dumping their product in Australia but cleared the other two. Federal Liberal MP for Murray, Sharman Stone, said even though 103 exporters now have tariffs applied to their products, the previous investigation didn’t result in fair trade. The investigation into La Doria and Feger has just begun, with the Anti-Dumping Commission calling for submissions. In its submission to the Anti-Dumping Commission, SPC Ardmona estimates that from 2010 to 2014 the processed tomato industry in Italy received more that $1.2 billion worth of subsidies under the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy.
Gruppo La Doria has dismissed as ‘groundless’ fresh claims from SPC Ardmona. “Therefore, we did not escape, simply the authority verified that SPC Ardmona requests were groundless” La Doria spokesperson told “due to the fact that nothing changed since that; we reassert that our sales are absolutely not dumped and we are confident that no duties could be applied to our company”. Officials at Feger had not responded to the request at the time of writing.
