By ROB McLEAN

CALLS for a boycott of National Foods products have been branded as irresponsible.

Local distributors, while unable to officially comment on the issue, have suggested that further jobs could be under threat if local shoppers enacted the boycott calls.

The distributors said such a move could seriously impinge on their business.

Their anger follows a call in last week’s Riverland Weekly for a boycott of products made by the multinational company.

South Australian Member for the Legislative Council David Winderlich, an independent, also joined calls for a boycott this week.

“National Foods has made hundreds of millions out of the fruit and the labour of the people of the Riverland and the loyalty of their South Australian customers,” Mr Winderlich said. 

“I wholeheartedly support calls for a boycott of National Foods and will be urging city people to join their friends in the Riverland and teach this callous multinational a lesson.”

Meanwhile, National Foods has responded to last week’s revelation that local staff had been asked to fill out an employment satisfaction survey, despite being just months away from forced redundancy.

National Foods corporate affairs manager Elise Sullivan said the company involved the Riverland staff in the survey as it did not wish to discriminate against them.

“We believe that everyone’s input is valuable and that is why we felt our people should choose whether they wanted to provide input into the survey, not us,” Ms Sullivan said.

“We understand that it’s a difficult period for our Riverland employees and their families as they work through their final months at the site.

“We are supporting them through this and it was never our intention to be insensitive with the

survey.”

National Foods said more than 50 people have so far responded to the survey.