[Originally printed November 11 2022]
PERRY Bridge Farm Fresh Produce owner and grocer Callum Lazzaro is closing his organic food store.
“We are sad to inform people that Sunday the 13th (of November) will be our last day of trading. Everything must go,” Mr Lazzaro wrote on Facebook.
“I’d like to thank everyone for their love and support over the last four-and-a-half years.”
Mr Lazzaro told the Gippsland Times he decided to close-up shop for personal reasons.
Mr Lazzaro’s business, located on Bengworden Rd in Perry Bridge, had been front and centre during the peak of extraordinary lettuce prices, which hit as high as $12 a lettuce around the country in the middle of the year.
A perfect storm of inflation, high fuel prices, war in Ukraine and flooding around the country contributed to costs spiralling for Perry Bridge Farm Fresh Produce.
Mr Lazzaro told the Gippsland Times in June the increase in prices coincided with fewer customers coming to the store after petrol spiked. Prices for certain produce had doubled or tripled in a matter of days. A bag of fertiliser went from $20 to $120. The business diversified in response to higher costs by selling plants and seedlings through a nursery.
“While winter is usually our quiet time, as soon as fuel prices went up to about $1.80 (a litre), I noticed a big drop in traffic, so business has slowed down dramatically,” he said at the time.
“I used to see car after car. I’m also in the middle of nowhere, so people don’t want to use their petrol to drive up, but thankfully my loyal customers keep coming back.
“When COVID first hit, people couldn’t buy seedlings from Bunnings, because they weren’t allowed to trade out of the gardening centre, so we started selling them. And now people have been asking me about seedlings, so I opened the nursery.”
Mr Lazzaro said they will be slashing prices until the final day of business on Sunday, including lettuce for $1, which would have been unheard of just months ago.
Perry Bridge Farm Fresh Produce is located at 3085 Bengworden Rd, Perry Bridge.
