SYDNEY - Australia's pins-in-punnets strawberry crisis prompted a spate of social-media driven hoaxes, but sites like Facebook and Twitter are also helping stir a revival in sales that has left some farmers struggling to meet resurgent demand. "Things are on the up," said Jim Ripepi of Australian Strawberry Distributors, a family-owned company that grows and sells strawberries wholesale. For some farmers it may be too little too late, but for the industry at large, it's a godsend. Strawberry farmers "were having their livelihoods threatened", Morrison said Monday, heralding the parliamentary response. In the latest twist, needles have turned up in a punnet of Australian strawberries in New Zealand, prompting the authorities there to say each punnet would be screened.

Source: Bangkok Post September 24, 2018 09:00 UTC