The O-I plant, associated with the chamber of commerce since 1991, is making the glass jars for Mr Smith’s new range of fruit spreads and honey.

He did have the option of sourcing bottles from China, but said ‘‘no way’’, choosing to support a local manufacturer.

Mr Smith said he thought the glass jar was ‘‘absolutely beautiful’’.

The country’s best-selling premium fruit spread came from France, he said, ‘‘yet Australian farmers are ploughing their crops back into the ground’’.

Mr Smith said his products were made from ‘‘beautiful Australian fruit’’ and consumers could feel good because they were supporting Australia.

While he said his fruit spreads would be about 20 cents more expensive than the French-produced spreads, he urged consumers to pay a bit more to ‘‘support the home team’’.

Mr Smith also said he was ‘‘really disappointed’’ his enterprise didn’t have the support of Coles, who he said were not stocking the products because they weren’t the cheapest.

But a Coles spokesman told the Star the reasoning behind the decision was Coles felt customers already had a good choice of Australian-made jams at the moment.

Mr Smith described the buying of farmland by overseas investors as a ‘‘catastrophe’’ and said we were also putting houses on some of our best farming land.

Dick Smith’s range of Magnificent Australian Grown fruit spread and honey — in Penrith-made jars — is on shelves in Woolworths and IGA stores.

Mr Smith said he thought glass was a fantastic product: ‘‘I’d like to try to get everything into glass’’.

The Penrith plant employs more than 300 people and celebrated 40 years in the area last year.

The company takes care with sustainability, having reduced its water usage and also its waste.