The Canadian-owned food processor has been cutting the amount of potatoes it buys from farmers in the Ballarat region of the State of Victiria, and is negotiating individual contracts, instead of dealing with the growers' association there.
McCain has been criticized for increasing potato imports, but Woolworths Chief Executive Grant O'Brien says a contract with the company could help to boost its use of Australian-grown potatoes.
"We're talking to McCain right now about doing some business with them on our own labels in relation to some frozen potato lines," he said. "So it's early days but we're in good and I think productive discussions with McCain at the moment to look at providing them with additional volume."
Woolworths' history with McCain is strong, O'Brien said. "We work in partnerships, one of the statistics that I'm really proud of is that 80 per cent of our suppliers have been with us for 10 years or more. We've got great partnerships all across the country and across the sectors and McCain has been a good partner for a long period of time and in relation to this latest opportunity that we're talking to them about, it's been very productive to this point in time."
