With hundreds of growers affected and the strawberry sabotage stretching into its third week, charities and organisations are rallying in Queenslander spirit. The Common Good and the ABC are running a strawberry sundae pop-up in King George Square today.

Dainya Odgaard reports.

TRANSCRIPT

What do you get when you mix one and a half tonnes of ice cream, half a tonne of strawberries and 150 volunteers?

The answer: 15,000 strawberry sundaes.

And they were sold in Brisbane today to raise money for farmers hit hard by the needle contamination scare.

Mandy, Luvaberry: “Good morning, Good morning, thank you for coming down and getting an ice cream and supporting all the farmers.”

The scare has cost growers millions of dollars.

Jennifer Rowling, Strawberry Industry: “We are a labour intensive industry so there has been a lot of workers who are out of jobs as well.”

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk served up some of the sundaes with one radio station broadcasting live all day.

Medical researchers helped as well because normally they receive the money raised with sundae sales.

Michael Hornby, Common Good charity: “The science and researchers who have benefited from the strawberries over the last 29 years are saying a big thank you and also just encouraging the public to get on with some positive stuff, to start buying those strawberries and see what new recipes we can create.”

The famous Queensland concoction has been popular for decades.

Normally these strawberry sundaes are an Ekka treat, but they’re proving just as popular today with thousands turning out to support farmers.

The Queensland government has set aside a million dollars for strawberry farmers but only $150,000 of that is going to them.

The rest is being spent on publicity and safeguarding the supply chain.

Dainya Odgaard, QUT News.