NON-Chinese Australians are being turned away from a “pop-up” shop stocking boxes of baby formula in Melbourne’s east.
It comes as Australian parents have been warned the shortage of infant formula on supermarket shelves could last for another 18 months.
Despite tins of formula and other milk product lining a shop on Victoria St in Abbotsford, the Herald Sun yesterday witnessed a number of would-be customers turned away.
Other customers were seen packing up tins of milk product into boxes before handing them back to staff to be sent overseas.
The shop, Australia SFX Global Express, is just 30m from a Woolworths supermarket which restricts customers to four tins per purchase.
A Richmond resident said she was rebuffed by the shop when she asked to buy formula on Wednesday.
“My concerns are that if customers can only buy four tins of the formula from Woolworths which is almost next door, then how can a shop openly and blatantly pack up boxes to be sent overseas?” the woman said.
The shop is the fourth pop-up store uncovered by the Herald Sun over the past week selling the product dubbed “white gold”. Other operations were found in Strathmore, Clayton and Glen Waverley.
There is no suggestion the stores are doing anything illegal.
The latest developments came as it emerged Woolworths is suspending the online shopping accounts of customers suspected of breaching terms and conditions including daily four-tin baby formula limits.
China’s demand for Australian infant formula has skyrocketed in recent years amid ongoing contamination concerns with their own brands.
So-called “grey market” exporters are purchasing the formula in bulk from Australian supermarkets and exporting it to China where parents pay up to $100 for a tin.
Milk Powder Australia owner Simon Hansford said Coles and Woolworths should introduce a register whereby customers would have to prove they had an infant in order to become a “VIP customer”.
“Just reducing purchases to two tins is not going to help — the Chinese will send in an army, they’ve got a whole system,” he said.
“It should not be a negative situation as this is great for our farmers and the whole industry. The only negative is if we cannot supply our local market.”
Rabobank analyst Michael Harvey said the shortage was likely to last for up to another 18 months due to the complexity of producing and marketing formula.
(20min delay)