RH Trading looking to buy fresh local vegetables

By PISAI GUMAR in Mt Hagen
A MAJOR supermarket chain in Port Moresby is looking into buying more fresh local vegetables to avoid the high cost of importing them.
RH Trading Ltd retail manager Paul Bullot and RH national purchasing manager Khu Chong Hong were in Mt Hagen last week to see the vegetables and farm produce available there, and to work out how best to supply these to Port Moresby.
Bullot said to improve the standard of the supply chain, some things needed to be considered, especially the transport systems to air freight directly from Mt Hagen or by road to Lae then by ship to Port Moresby.
He also floated the idea of establishing a freight or shipment mechanism in a collective approach through the government’s public private partnership to subsidise the air freight or shipment.
He said with the Apec meetings in Port Moresby, the government needed to seriously consider feeding visitors with local produce.
Bullot and Hong commended the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) value chain innovation programme manager Noel Kuman for facilitating such initiative linking “market to farm gate”.
“This is awesome, everything (fresh vegetables) of high quality demanded in Port Moresby are sold at a lower price in Mt Hagen.
“The issue is how we can get them over either by plane or road (then ship).” The RH Hypermarket has been buying vegetables from Organic Farm Fresh Ltd in Mt Hagen over the past two years.
The FPDA facilitated the market accessibility for OFF Ltd owner John Beiye who caters for almost 40 farmers in Western Highlands.
Kuman said it was important for Bullot and Hong to experience the struggles farmers endure in farming to storage to freighting which at times were delayed.