FRESH fruit and vegetables could be stripped from Far Northern supermarket shelves just days after a two week nation-wide transport shutdown starts on Monday, shoppers have been warned.
Woolworths and Coles yesterday could not rule out shoppers being "inconvenienced" by the strike and its organisers are urging shoppers to stock-up.
Fresh product is expected to be hit first, followed soon after by non-perishable food items as shoppers rush to fill cupboards.
Australian Long Distance Owners and Drivers Association Queensland president Lyn Bennetts said 80 per cent of industry supported the shutdown and nothing would be transported during the strike, including food.
It is expected to affect trucks, trains, ships and wharves and could end with more than 65,000 trucks being off the road before it winds up on August 10.
"The supermarkets will be empty in a couple of days," she said.
"The Government doesn't want a transport industry and we want to show them what it would be like without a transport industry."
Ms Bennetts said drivers and owners appealed to the public to bear with the inconvenience and understand that to lose the transport industry would produce far more pain.
"If we lose our transport industry, all the small businesses that service it would all go down the gurgler with us and only the big guys (in the transport industry) would survive," she said.
"It would leave a monopoly and transport prices would go through the roof."
She said the protest was focused on getting drivers and owners a pay rise and to force the Federal Government to act on rising fuel prices.
Woolworths spokesman Benedict Brook said yesterday the company would be doing everything in its power to ensure supplies made it to stores.
"There could definitely be some inconvenience to customers and we will have to see how it pans out," he said.
Coles spokesman Jim Cooper said it was difficult to predict the impact until the company had a clear idea about how protracted the shutdown would be.
