‘Australia’s first cashless bakery’ slammed by pro-cash community

A country bakery has announced a milestone move, claiming it is the first bakery in Australia to go completely cashless.

But the Heritage Bakery at Milton, on the NSW South Coast, has been slammed by the nation’s online pro-cash community.

“Australia’s first cashless bakery. Cashless is quick. Cashless is clean. Cashless is accurate. Thank you for being an early adopter,” the shop declared in a sign, which was photographer by a customer and shared anonymously on social media.

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The post remarked: “For a country town, I guess they are proud of this … Each to their own, but good luck to them when their system goes down.”

Netizens fumed at the small business’ decision, with one social media commentator pulling apart the sign: “Cashless is quick — unless there is an outage! Cashless is clean — so they wipe down that EFTPOS machine after every use? Cashless is accurate — so no one ever (makes) keying errors?”

But some were quick to comment on the cost of keeping cash on premises.

“I don’t think people understand how cash costs business to deposit. Business exists purely to drive profit, they are not going to take away a profitable form of payment — I’m not sure how people don’t understand this,” one person wrote.

The bakery has only just reopened after refurbishments to the historic building but, unlike the fresh facade, netizens familiar with the small business claim the money move is not new.

“They have been cashless for years,” one person wrote.

“There is a reason behind this — the bakery got robbed and trashed (looking for safes etc) three times within a short time, a few years ago. So, they went cashless, advertised it, and haven’t had an issue since,” another wrote.

It’s the same reasoning behind the recent decision of a McDonald’s branch in Melbourne’s south to go cashless.

The branch revealed it was going cashless between the hours of midnight and 6am, with a spokesperson this week telling 7NEWS.com.au: “The safety and wellbeing of our people and customers is our top priority.”

The Heritage Bakery Facebook post went viral on Facebook, and has accumulated 600 comments — many of which are rage-fuelled.

“Hope they go broke and lose everything, they might learn then,” one person wrote.

“Anyone want to cut their power and internet off on a regular basis?” another wrote.

It comes nearly a month after Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock spoke at the Australian Payments Network Summit about the evolving attitudes towards cash in Australia.

“Consumers and businesses are benefiting from new payment technologies that are more flexible and easier to use,” she said.

“The use of cash for payments has been declining for many years as consumers have switched to digital payments.

“But greater use of these electronic methods is also adding to payment costs for businesses.

“The RBA places a high priority on the community continuing to have reasonable access to cash withdrawal and deposit services.

“Cash remains an important means of payment for some people and is widely held for precautionary or store-of-wealth purposes.”

7NEWS.com.au has contacted Heritage Bakery for comment.