A Newcastle woman has started a Facebook page called Make the Swap. It's going gangbusters.
The page urges people to buy Australian.
Becky Swapston started the Make the Swap page. Did that name give you a chuckle? It did for us, too. That's her brand name, so to speak.
"The premise of Make the Swap is to showcase how easy it is for Australians to support Australian products without spending more and without changing shopping habits," Becky said.
"The goal is for everyone to focus on making one permanent purchasing swap to Australian grown, made or owned."
She's encouraging people to adopt this "achievable, practical way that we can turn the tide on supporting Australian primary producers and manufacturing".
Becky promotes practical supermarket "swaps" from imported market leaders to Australian alternatives.
On Tuesday, her Facebook page will specifically urge people from Newcastle and the Hunter to support the cause.
It's part of her plan to promote "locals' nights" for different areas.
"It's a chance for local producers to share their wares and for consumers to share where they buy local brands," she said.
"Make the Swap is a national page, so it's harder to support the little guys. I'm hoping this gives those local brands or producers an engaged, active audience that are far more likely to support them."
Becky said the response to the Facebook page [it's also on Instagram] had been phenomenal.
"I created the page two months ago and it already has 90,000 followers - all reached organically, without paying for boosted posts or Facebook promotions," she said.
"Most people are shocked at how we have so easily been misdirected towards imported brands as our market leaders, when there are equivalent or better Australian alternatives."
Becky said her Rosella soup post was "a quintessential Make the Swap post, weaving a narrative around tomato soup and Michael Bevan's win against the West Indies".
She's also promoted Australian-made frozen berries, shampoo, toothpaste, sauce, breadcrumbs, corn kernels, beetroot, beer, orange juice, tea, honey and jam.
"The jam post for example - crossing out Cottee's - has been viewed 1.6 million times and I only wrote it a couple of weeks ago."
Jam Jingle Joke
It's a bit of a coincidence that Make the Swap had a post urging people against buying Cottee's Jam.
We were sitting in our backyard on Sunday and, for some reason, we came up with new lyrics to the famous Cottee's jingle.
We sang: "My dad processes the sugar that goes to Cottee's to make the cordial that makes kids overweight."
As you can see, we've done one too many stories about obesity.
- topics@newcastleherald.com.au
