Melbourne grocers are not playing around when it comes to their broccoli
The sign which reads 'DO NOT BREAK Broccoli' appears beside a display of $6.99 per kilo broccoli and warns 'You will pay $1 extra for each you break if we find out'.
The strict policy has drawn attention after a photo of the sign was shared online by a Reddit user with the caption: 'Don't break the broccoli or else'.
Shoppers have taken to Reddit to voice their concerns and frustration.
One user wrote: 'Selling broccoli with long stems is relatively new … I'm convinced this changed so supermarkets and shop owners could charge more."
'Similar thing with capsicum, you'd never buy it with the green stalk and the red part was thin, they used to be really light to hold," they added.
Another commenter said: 'This is so bizarre to me because back in NZ, we buy broccoli per unit, fixed price! I'd never heard of buying broccoli by weight before."
While some see the crackdown as heavy handed, retailers argue it's the only way to deal with rising costs and stem snapping habits.
One Reddit user who said they used to work at a small green grocer said small providers would make a loss on the broccoli when shoppers tried to cut down the weight.
"The reason for this is because they buy broccoli from wholesalers/farmers by weight - so when people break the stalk off broccoli, they end up losing money because no one is going to pick a discarded stalk off the shelf to buy it," they said.
"If we were serving a customer and noticed the stalks had been removed, we had to call the boss and he would find the stalk and make the customer pay for it/put it in their bag of broccoli."
Since a broccoli is priced by weight, removing the stalk can result in significant losses for stores, especially during shortages and price hikes.
To reduce losses, major chains like Coles, Woolworths and Aldi have started pricing broccoli per head instead as well as per kilo which is a strategy already adopted for corn and truss tomatoes after customers began stripping those down too.
Prices have soared to about $10.90 per kilo at both Coles and Woolworths and $3.71 for a head of broccoli, weighing "approximately 340g".
The rise in costs is due to poor weather conditions in regions across Victoria and Queensland leading to supply shortages and increased demand.
Co-founder of Farmers Pick Josh Ball told 9honey Kitchen that both baby broccoli and broccolini have been impacted by the cold weather conditions in the growing regions of Australia.
Since December 2024 the prices have more than doubled rising from $4.90 per kilo to $10.90 per kilo.
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