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Food

Australia’s Potato Rebel Wants to Give You Free Spuds

In protest of the state’s regulated market, Western Australian potato mogul Tony Galati is literally giving away 200 tonnes of spuds this very second.
Photo courtesy of Spudshed

There'll be no shortage of mash on the dinner tables around Perth tonight. Western Australian potato mogul Tony Galati is literally giving away 200 tonnes of spuds as you read this.

Galati, head of the one of the nation's biggest vegetable-producing families, is handing over what amounts to $600,000 worth of potatoes in protest of the state's regulated market—the last of its kind in Australia.

His Spudshed stores around metropolitan Perth threw open their doors at 7 AM this morning to begin distributing his surplus stock of loose nadine potatoes for free. They will continue to do so through Sunday.

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This defiant move has got other local potato growers and the WA Potato Marketing Corporation (PMC) spitting chips over what they're calling blatant self-promotion.

"Shouldn't affect other growers as they don't supply our outlets," Galati said at the giveaway. "If anything, it will affect our own sales in store."

It's the PMC and the regulated market it oversees at which Galati is taking aim.

In addition to setting the rate that growers receive, the PMC decides who can grow potatoes, how many, and what varieties are planted. It is also invested with Soviet-style powers to search the premises of farmers, confiscating their equipment and prosecuting them, whilst inspectors can stop vehicles suspected of carrying more than 50 kg of spuds and search for any hot potatoes.

"I believe it's outdated and unnecessary," Galati tells MUNCHIES. "It's an added cost of doing business and creates a system with little focus on efficiencies and the consumer, which are natural concerns in a free market."

Recently, potatoes prices have plummeted to below 50 cents a kilogram due to an oversupply on the market. Last year, a report by the Economic Regulation Authority recommended the PMC be abolished, as the regulated market disadvantages consumers.

However, Potato Growers Association WA executive officer Jim Turley said the oversupply is allegedly due to a number of growers—including Galati—illegally planting extra potatoes, which costs family growers large amounts of money.

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Photo courtesy of Spudshed

"In the regulated market in WA, we specifically supply the required amount of 1,000 tonnes a week to consumers," Turley explained. "They don't eat any more. You can imagine, if there's 20-percent oversupply, then of course we're in trouble because growers that have done the right thing are trying to get their potatoes in, but they can't."

But this is not a new fight for Galati. He's been waging the war on spuds for the past 20 years. "It has cost me millions over the years and I will continue to fight until it is gone," he said.

In 2008, he reached an out-of-court settlement with PMC for selling potatoes outside the regulated market. In 2011, he was fined $3000 for over-planting. In 2013, a week before Galati was to appear in court, the PMC dropped the over-planting charges against him.

Behind the state's regulated market is the antiquated Marketing of Potatoes Act 1946, which was legislation brought in post-World War II to ensure the food security of potatoes.

In 2008, Galati took the PMC to the Federal Court to challenge the monopoly powers the act provides, claiming that it contravenes the Trade Practices Act 1974. Galati subsequently dropped the two-year case due to the amount of money it was costing him.

WA premier Colin Barnett has said there will be no changes to the state potato market for at least another two years.

So it might be the next generation of the Galati family that brings about the victory, as Frank—Tony's international fashion model son—is being groomed to take over the empire in the next few years.