Coles and Woolworths slammed again by ACCC in ‘concerning’ report on grocery sector
Coles and Woolworths charge 20% more for groceries than they did five years ago, require suppliers to pay rebates, and are alleging “land banking” to stifle competition.
These are the major findings from the ACCC’s interim report on the grocery sector, which comes at the tail end of a week that started with the competition regulator taking the two supermarkets to court, alleging unfair pricing practices.
The regulator found that Coles and Woolworths were protecting their control of the supermarket market by offering broadly the same pricing and products. “Supermarket retailing in Australia is an oligopoly”, the report claims, with Woolworths and Coles accounting for 67% of supermarket retail sales nationally, compared to Aldi’s 9% and Metcash-supplied independent supermarkets just 7%.
I remember Mr Richard Goyda promoting Coles would sell two litre of milk, for $1. As a consumer, I believed at the time the subsidy would come from the Coles Marketing fund. Yeah right.
“Another business practice under the ACCC’s microscope is the requirement of suppliers to pay the supermarkets rebates for promotions, which has forced some suppliers to operate at a loss.” Good. I remember hearing the absolutely disgraceful price Woolies was offering an old agri mate for cartons of grapes. But of course, nowhere else to sell to. Disgusting and immoral. Get rid of these thieves.
So, Coles prices have risen 20% in five years. Sounds a huge amount. Were you aware that ABS shows that in the past five years that average weekly earnings have risen by 15.6%? That equates to their average annual increase is less than 1% that of earnings. Oh … and COVID was in there partially a cause.
I ain’t a Coles fan, but c’mon .. be realists.
Woolworths is absolutely expensive, I have been shopping at Woolworths practically all my married life and have seen the prices since covid have gone up so much, I’m a mother of 8 children and it’s very had to shop for groceries the way I used to. It it actually very stressful im sure for many Australians as well.
I’ve noticed in Woolies 1 kg of ground coffee $37 next week $22 a large butter $7 small o r half size $6 as you can see for the coffee $15 difference who can afford that just leave it at $25 they make me so mad with the bullshit they try to scam customers with and the buy two get it cheaper only on chocolate as I can see and it’s still a rip off.
Thankyou Gavin Geale.