I’ve spent 35 years in retail, and 25 of those have been at Woolworths. They’ve taught me a simple truth – while we might love and sell food, Woolies is a people business.
Our close relationship with the customers, farmers, businesses and communities of rural and regional Australia keeps our 1,100-plus Woolworths stores open.
One hundred per cent of the fresh meat, eggs, and milk in our stores is produced in Australia, and 96% of the fruit and vegetables.
We purchase 986 million kilograms of fruit and veg each year and 618 million litres of fresh milk through our relationships with 3,400 farmers – produce our customers rely on every day.
But what happens when Australia’s food-producing, regional communities have their food supply threatened?
The impacts of flood and bushfire have worsened over the past decade and are predicted to become more severe in the future, making food security even more vital.
Woolies has begun mapping our most critical highway and rail transport routes – right down to individual five kilometre segments – to understand the risks to food supply posed by natural disasters.
We have focused on areas where the loss of road and rail together can threaten food deliveries to entire regional centres.
One example the data has identified is a high flood risk point in the Burdekin River area south of Townsville where the Bruce Highway and the rail line follow the same flood-prone corridor.
Every year we see the same transport lines impacted by weather events that leave communities cut off and worrying about whether their supermarket shelves will be stocked.
We saw this in March last year, when food and water deliveries to Ingham in North Queensland had to be made by air when the town was cut off by flood.
In 2022, the East-West rail corridor, which supplies Western Australia, closed for 24 days and ships had to be called in.
We work with at-risk communities to plan for these unwanted events, but we are also calling for better targeted investment to build the resilience of highways and rail lines they rely on and we are sharing our data insights with decision makers.
Times of natural disaster reveal how vulnerable some communities are, but they also show the incredible resilience of people in rural areas.
When things get tough, regional communities back their own.
At Woolies, we back them too – not just in times of crisis – but by championing their products on our shelves every day.
An example is the Little Big Dairy Co based in Dubbo NSW.
This family-run dairy company on the banks of the Macquarie River has seen sales of its milk, cheese and butter growing strongly, with a 52% increase in the number of Woolies supermarkets stocking its products over the past year.
Most pleasingly, it’s Woolies regional stores where Little Big Dairy Co is making most sales in our network, with the city hosting this year’s Bush Summit – Dubbo – being the standout.
We celebrate these local success stories – as we do the nominees and winners of the Woolworths Bush Champions in 2026.