10.7% food inflation highlights how useless Labour’s Supermarket Duopoly reform has been
As TDB has been warning, since January, 10% food inflation was always coming and we have refused to prepare for it…
Food prices rise at fastest rate in 14 years
Food prices have risen at their fastest rate in 14 years over the past 12 months.
Stats NZ said the annual increase for food prices was 10.7 percent in November, the highest since September 2008.
It compares to a 10.1 percent annual increase in October.
Grocery food was the largest contributor, shooting up 10 percent, with prices for cheddar cheese, yoghurt, and standard two-litre milk being the biggest drivers within the category.
Fruit and vegetable prices increased by an annual rate of 20 percent, driven by increases in the price of potatoes, onions and bananas.
Restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food prices increased by 8 percent, while meat, poultry and fish prices increased by 12 percent.
Non-alcoholic drink prices increased by 7.8 percent.
No where is Labour’s weak over caution in terms of legislation best highlighted than the failure to reform the Supermarket Duopoly.
That whiff of desperation you smell here is a Government realising that the cost of Living Crisis is killing them politically.
The spineless gutless Labour Government wouldn’t step up and actually take a 30% stake and run our own supermarket player to force actual competition and food security AS ADVISED BY THE COMMERCE COMMISSION, preferring to do the age old meaninglessness masquerading as tweaks and first good step crap.
To be fair to David Clark, the measures being forced here are structures that at any other time would enable downward price pressures.
Ending the obvious abuses of power like land covenants is good, as is the ability for local supermarkets to rebrand so a 3rd player can enter the market, and most importantly allowing competitors like smaller dairies and minimarts, butchers and grocers the ability to buy at the same wholesale price is another structural feature that will push prices down.
HOWEVER
These aren’t normal times!
Government after Government have allowed the Supermarket Duopoly to grow out of control so these basic regulatory features which should have been implemented decades ago, simply won’t be enough to stem the pain of food inflation!
It suggests that the Government are slowly realising that the Treasury’s predictions of the inflationary spike to be temporary are optimistic in the extreme and that come December when Putin is strangling Europe with Gas cuts, inflationary pressures will erupt.
Labour better be looking to be on the road to achieving some price relief at the supermarkets by December or they will be gone at the Ballot Box the following year.
I’m not looking for Socialism from Labour any longer, just basic regulated capitalism!
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Was it meant to change anything? Trademark Ardern Labour perception management, tinkering to make it look like they cared but we’re wiser nowadays and know they don’t.
Well get used to it. David Clarkes measures are the only thing that will happen because Luxon and Willis “welcomed” the commerce commission findings. With Jesus and Seymour Austerity at the helm, from q4 next year, things won’t get better
Er, when governments do daft things like severely restrict labour flows into NZ as they introduce legislation like the FPA all while any attempt to get the unemployed into work is forgotten and hidden under classification changes the cost of labour goes up.
It’s not the duopoly that’s driving this as they’re largely price takers in this scenario. Yes they do make more profit than comparable supermarket chains in overseas markets however they were making it well before inflation hit.
An example, Countdown which is owned by WWNZ, itself a subsidiary of WWAU, recently agreed to a 12% increase in wages for its Distribution Centre employees. They number well over 1000 hard working and well deserving people. Kudos to Unite (I think) for their negotiating skills, although the strike last year made an agreement almost a foregone conclusion.
Anyway, if wages at the base of the pyramid are increasing by values like 12% it’s hardly surprising that food costs are skyrocketing as well.
That’s before you add in shitty wet spring weather, crazy costs increases for fuel, bonkers compliance requirements, etc. etc.
This one should really be sheeted home to Grant and Adrian
Go on a diet, you fat bastards! Buy less, eat less and lose some of that Covid-belly you gained during lockdown.
And look at the Marsden Pt fiasco…guaranteeing NZ can be held to ransom,regarding refined fuel.Another clusterfuck.
Yes, we are over an oil barrel now. Muldoon will be rolling in his grave. The oil refinery was built so that NZ would have some control over its petrol prices, even enabling a government to actually set a petrol price in periods of high inflation. But alas the oil companies with the support of the green hoodwinked labour and here we are 10% food price inflation.
Not looking for socialism from Labour any longer? I gave up looking after Helen Clark’s first term, with due respect to Michael Cullen of course.