Australian Made Week recently drew to a close - Western Plains App looked into whether the quintessential Aussie Made green and gold kangaroo logo has as much influence as it used to when it comes to purchasing locally created products.

In 1986, a new green-and-gold coloured "Australian Made" logo featuring a stylised kangaroo in a triangle was launched as part of the "Australian Made" campaign launched by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

The logo is still in use and this year, "Australian Made Week" claimed 99 per cent of Australians recognise the kangaroo image.

That may be true, but does it influence consumer purchases?

Steph Simmonds owns and runs BackoBourke Collective located on Oxley Street in the heart of Bourke, along with her mother, Nancy Randall. Ms Simmonds says while she doesn’t specifically look for the logo when searching for stock for their store, sourcing Australian made products is very important to them.

"We have a little bit of everything here," Ms Simmonds said. "We are a newsagent, toy shop, lottery outlet and also stock pantry items and souvenirs. We were lucky during Covid as we were classed an essential service so didn't have to completely close, but the pressures of Covid lockdowns did make us branch into on-line sales."

Ms Simmonds said that in the post Covid landscape, their in-store traffic was now more than online, however, with the dwindling support for the newsagent side of their business, she was glad they had diversified.

"We find people love anything bush related," she said. "Things like bush tucker and pantry items sell really well. Even though it's rare for our products to have the classic green and gold kangaroo logo, they are still clearly made in Australia."

Ms Simmonds said she and Ms Randall like to support the "little brands" that are created and housed in rural areas.

"It’s our small business supporting someone else's small business," Ms Simmonds said. "We often get visitors in store looking for locally made products but they sell well on-line also. Di Ridge's Poppy Seed Dressing is hugely popular in both sectors and is made locally. We are happy to be able to support her business"

Ms Ridge lives on a sheep station southwest of Bourke with her husband Phillip. 

"As drought and a wool recession took hold in 2001, everyone was discovering other avenues of income and I wondered what my contribution could be," Ms Ridge says on her website bio. "I had made a salad dressing – a recipe that was given to me- which was much admired and my friends suggested I make it commercially. So after several sleepless nights pondering my ability to find the time, I produced my first batch - in Coca Cola bottles!

"In the intervening years, although it is still personally handmade, the business has grown successfully with shop and mail order sales all over Australia."

While the whole point of Australian Made Week is to encourage consumers to buy locally produced items, those doing a search for the grand gold logo seems to vary.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re buying new sporting kit or a bag of apples, spending your money on Australian Made or Grown is a great way to support your local community,” Australian Made Week ambassador, Ash Barty said.

“Australian products have a great reputation around the world for having some of the highest standards in craftsmanship, safety and quality. That’s a great reason to get behind them, but it’s also in all our best interests to buy local whenever we can and encourage all our family and friends to do the same.”

According to Roy Morgan research, if every household spent an additional $10 a week on Australian Made products, an extra $4.8 billion would be injected into the economy each year, creating up to 9,500 new jobs.

And it seems, with the logo or not, Australian made products are still proving popular.