A Winkleigh woman has claimed that unfair business practices by Bunnings made her feel like a "slave" to the retail giant, led to disastrous losses in her nursery business and almost ruined her marriage.
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Appearing before the Senate Select Committee's Inquiry into Supermarket Prices in Canberra on Thursday, Brocklands Nursery owner Karen Brock said Bunnings attempts to manipulate the prices it pays by encouraging its plant suppliers to continually grow more without guaranteeing minimum order levels to any of them.
"It got to a point where our marriage was in deep trouble, our business was in deep trouble, our future was in deep trouble," she told the committee.
She said Bunnings' practices resulted in low prices for her business and order sizes in some years collapsing without any warning, as the retail giant switched between its various suppliers in an apparent 'divide and conquer' strategy.
"We have been treated as numbers, as KPIs for somebody else to actually enhance their lifestyle and our misery," Ms Brock said.
Victorian nursery owner Peter Smith told the hearing that he had exited the live plants business as a result of what he claimed were unfair practices by Bunnings.
He said he was encouraged to invest $4.5 million in a growing facility to branch into new plant lines to supply Bunnings.
"We moved into indoor lines as we were encouraged to and that drove the investment," he said.
"We've found that that business has started to dwindle, and we're left with a facility that is not utilised," he said.
He said every request to Bunnings for a price increase was answered with "some kind of threat".
Ms Brock said troubles with the giant retailer escalated in 2014-2015, when Bunnings opened massive new stores in Burnie, Launceston and Glenorchy.
"Because we're growing stock two or three years in advance, we needed to know what were their plans so that we could grow stock," she told the Committee.
Bunnings refused to sign trading terms or contracts detailing the number of plants they would buy from her over time.
They also refused to adhere to minimum plant order sizes, forcing her to incur losses delivering small orders to Bunnings stores state wide from Winkleigh.
"We were travelling to Hobart and back ... for a $78 order, or a $48 order.
"We tried to bring in a $300 minimum order but that was rejected," she said.
Ms Brock said the unfair lack of transparency on its ordering schedule was rife in Bunnings.
"We had these huge pressures put on suppliers, they promised the world, and then those promises weren't delivered," she said.
Her business was left with mountains of unsold stock as a result.
"I don't think there's anything worse than seeing your work of two to three years sitting on the tip.
"I felt that we were slaves, we were slaves to Bunnings," she said.
"We were a mouse running around the hamster wheel and no matter how fast you spun that wheel, you could not ever achieve the goal of making somebody happy in that environment."
Bunnings Managing Director Mike Schneider said he was "concerned" to hear the accounts from two of his former suppliers.
"Some of the claims made were new to us, some quite historical, and others are not aligned to the information we have to hand," he said.
"They're absolutely at odds with the way we believe we do business and we look forward to responding to these more formally in due course.
"Assertions that we do not have contracts or that our team refused to make commitments or agree to price increases are simply not true.
"We're confident the two accounts don't reflect the views of the vast majority of our around 220 greenlife suppliers.
"However, we know we don't always get it right and if we let a supplier down, we act as quickly as we can to remedy it."
