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Lunch meat showdown: What do you call this particular product?

Sep 30, 2017

It's a battle of the states when it comes to deli meats.

While Australia doesn’t have huge variations in dialect from state to state, it can be possible to tell where a person is from based on what they call particular things. If you call swimwear “togs” for instance, there’s a good change you’re from Queensland. And someone who calls deep-fried slices of potato “potato cakes” is probably Victorian, while their “scallop” rivals might be from New South Wales.

And evidently, this variation comes in for lunch meats. Case in point: A South Australian man has blasted Woolworths on Facebook for having the cheek to not adhere to the local name given to this particular round, sliced, processed lunch meat.

“Woolworths, hi.

We need to have a talk.

In case you missed year 7 civics, you may have missed the part of your education which covered that Australia is made up of a federation of states, along with 2 territories.

As part of this, the Commonwealth retains the right to make laws in accordance with section 51 of the Constitution. It has long been recognised that Section 51 enumerated the powers the commonwealth held, with the ability to make laws in other areas, left residual for the state parliaments to decide.

Why do I bring this to your attention?

I have read my constitution cover to cover, and I can recite our S. 51 off by heart… however, I can tell you, there is nothing in there that says “there shall be a consistent National term for processed meats, and it shall be called Devon”

I took this photo in a South Australian Woolworths supermarket last week. I hope you are as shocked as I am.

This resembles Fritz. In South Australia we call it as we see it, and when you say fritz you get an image of what it is… like fritz and sauce sangas. What the hell even is Devon other than a small county in South West England.

We were the only state without convicts, and your cultural imperialism will be halted here.

South Australia is a leader in many areas, space technology, renewable energies, and we are confident we will hold the AFL premiership after this weekend, again playing in the Eastern states when we deserve home ground advantage.

Australia does not finish at the Blue Mountains… there is no Brisbane line any more.

I trust you will change your distribution chain and train your employees to correctly prepare and distribute our fritz to us once again, and respect our unique and superior culture.”

While Woolworths have labelled it ‘Devon’, it turns out most people in South Australia refer to the processed meat (which is particularly good in a white bread sandwich with tomato sauce) as ‘Fritz’.

The term ‘Devon’ or ‘Belgium’ is often used in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales, while Western Australia calls it ‘polony’ and it is clearly ‘fritz’ in South Australia.

We just hope for their sake that Woolworths have labelled their savloys / little boys / cocktail franks / cheerios correctly!