The boss of Woolworths' fresh foods division, Michael Batycki, says there is a misconception that the supermarket giant rejects "an awful lot" of its fruit and vegetable deliveries.
"Rejections (of fresh fruit and vegetables) are a small part of our business, about 1 percent of deliveries," Mr Batycki said.
"There is a misconception out there that we reject an awful lot of product.
"That perception in the main, seems to come from people who don't deal with us directly," he said.
Another furphy was that Woolies and its fierce rival, Coles, exercised a virtual duopoly in sales of fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables, beef and lamb.
Roy Morgan Research data told a different story, Mr Batycki said, with Woolies holding a 27pc share of fresh fruit and vegetable sales and Coles 20pc.
"We are in a minority and have to compete strongly in the marketplace," he said.
"The independent sector in Australia is very strong and they do a wonderful job."
Similarly for beef and lamb, new Roy Morgan research showed butchers sold more serves of beef and lamb than did any other retailer in Australia in 2008.
Butchers finished the year with a 30.8pc market share of beef and veal and a 31.6pc share of lamb, just ahead of Woolworths with 29.1pc and 29.8pc of beef and lamb respectively.
Mr Batycki was talking during a visit to Woolworths' regional distribution centre at Minchinbury, on Sydney's western outskirts, one of nine across the country which pack fast-moving goods, including fresh farm produce, for delivery to the company's 800 supermarkets.
The distribution centre was buzzing with electric-powered pallet transporters whose operators were being directed via microphone-equipped headsets as they picked up produce stored on racks in a network of chillers and assembled them for shipment to individual supermarkets.
While some produce goes direct from farm to individual supermarkets, most of it is delivered by the company's 500 accredited suppliers to distribution centres like Minchinbury where loads are matched against Woolies' tight specifications by specialist staff.
All rejected produce (which is stored in a chiller) has to be picked up by suppliers in line with Woolies' policy of openness and transparency.
Mr Batycki said suppliers were fully aware of the company's specifications which, in many cases, had been written by its growers and adopted by other sections of the industry.
He said Woolies had strong and long-term relationships with most of its local grower suppliers and sourced about 95pc of its 20 million kg of weekly fresh produce sales ($2 billion a year) from them.
Imports of fresh produce were limited to counter-seasonal activities when a crop wasn't available in Australia (for example, navel oranges in summer and table grapes in winter).
This policy wouldn't change even if Biosecurity Australia opened the door to more fruit imports including apples from NZ.
Woolworths was continually encouraging local growers to fill seasonal production shortfalls and varietal gaps and had been working for the past six to increase local garlic production to replace imports from South America and China, Mr Batycki said.
And Mr Batycki said Woolworths intended to stick with its local suppliers, despite Biosecurity Australia's recent decision to allow imports of cavendish bananas from the Philippines under strict conditions.
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