11/05/2024
Food for thought
Surprise Surprise…. Yes, Australia’s big supermarkets have been price gouging.
Unsupermarket cartoon
Price gouging is when businesses exploit a lack of competition by setting prices well above cost price. But the practice is not explicitly illegal.
The Senate inquiry into grocery prices and supermarket power has delivered a lengthy 195-page-long report spanning supermarket pricing’s impact on customers, food waste, relationships with suppliers, employee wages and conditions, excessive profitability, company mergers and land banking.
It recommends a Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory for supermarket chains. This code governs how they should deal with suppliers. The government’s recent Independent Review of the Food and Grocery Code also recommended making it mandatory for the supermarket giants.
The evidence brought forward by people willing to speak out about the business practices of Colesworth suggests that maintaining margins and increasing margin growth is occurring at the expense of suppliers, consumers, and best business practices, and without proper justification.
The recommendations at this interim stage focus mainly on supply chains and fairer trading. Market share and the dominance of the two major supermarkets is not being addressed which may ultimately mean business as usual for pricing.
There’s only one action all political parties agree on at this stage: making the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory and ensuring its full enforcement. We’re unlikely to see much unity on the other recommendations.
What is very clear is that the report represents “a missed opportunity to address some of the structural imbalances in our supermarket sector that are impacting Australia’s growers, farmers, small businesses, and ultimately consumers”. The reality is that unless these structural imbalances in our food system are addressed, we’re unlikely to see meaningful change.
This paint a troubling picture of the food system in Australia – in particular, how growers and consumers are struggling. The task for regulators is working out what mechanisms can be used to address the imbalance of power in the market, in a way that doesn’t force growers or Australian consumers to bear the cost.
Apparently fixing the problem won’t be easy….really??
What we know is the majors need more competition…. that’s exactly where Box divvy comes in!
Fabulous, fairly paid for produce, with good old fashioned customer service, that gives consumers and farmers a better deal!
The Cozzie livs crisis is alive and well in most households (and yes that was crowned the Macquarie dictionary word of the year 2023!)
Calling all Hubsters to be loud and proud of your contribution. As we grow, we all do our bit sharing the Box Divvy LOVE and educating our communities that THERE IS a better way to shop.
To Unsupermarket is a movement 😊
Let’s see if we can make it Macquarie dictionary’s word of the year 2024
Look at the new truck hey!! Who is going to get excited when they pass one of those on the road 😁
