Investigative Journalism highlights NZ Supermarket price gouging – what’s the point of Bread and Butter politics if no one can afford Bread or Butter?
It tells you something about NZ when the best investigative TV journalism requires Supermarket supplies having to have their faces blurred and identities hidden because the Supermarket Duopoly is so fucking powerful.
We are being price gouged by these fucking Greedy Supermarkets!
Group of supermarket suppliers speak out as it’s revealed how much Kiwis are paying for their goods
A group of New Zealand grocery suppliers have told Newshub supermarket consumers are being “screwed”.
They’ve revealed the price they sell their goods to the major players, and Newshub compared that to the price you pay in the shop. In some cases, the price is doubled
Forty-six different small to medium-sized suppliers who sell food to both Foodstuffs and Countdown told Newshub the supermarkets are making up to a 55 percent gross profit margin on a product.
One lettuce grower Newshub spoke to said he would sell one for $3, but in-store consumers would pay more than $6 for that same lettuce.
The highest supermarket margins Newshub found were in dairy products, fresh produce, and organics.
But there is a huge range – the lowest profit margin Newshub heard of was 20 percent. That particular supplier was selling a dry-packaged product with a very long shelf life.
The vast majority of these small to medium-sized suppliers were seeing a supermarket profit margin on their product of between 30 percent and 40 percent.
The cost of living crisis is hurting the very voters Labour promised to be transformative for.
The Left have done sweet fuck all for the material hardships of poverty, housing, inequality and climate change.
As I have pointed out tirelessly, while Labour saved us from Covid, they haven’t saved us from the ruthlessness of the under regulated free market.
I argued we would see double digit food inflation last year and that asking kiwis to endure more isn’t a political solution.
We hit 11.6% food inflation in March and the damage to crops is going to see food prices spike.
Voters need to hope that their basic costs will come down.
Voters need to believe a new Supermarket backed by the Government could do that.
The Commerce Commission has argued that if Competition doesn’t occur, they have the power to force a 30% sale to a 3rd Supermarket chain and I argue that should be the State!
Covid taught us food security matters and a Supermarket chain that embeds a cheaper food security while supporting local supplies is a necessity to correct a broken market!
Government should enter into a deal with Iwi to stock a new chain of Government/Iwi Supermarkets that champion local produce at better prices for the consumer and better worker conditions.
We need a kiwi subsidy on all local produce to recognize that producers have already used water and created local climate changing gases to create their product and as such consumers have already paid a price just to get the product to their table.
We should feed the 5million here first before boasting about feeding 40million world wide!
Calls to ‘feed the 5 million first’ before exporting NZ food
People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.
Almost 40 percent of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19 percent of children live in households that experience food insecurity.
Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.
A state owned 3rd supermarket chain would do more for providing a cheaper means of living to all kiwis who have food security issues. It would do more for welfare than any single PM since Savage.
History is calling Chippy.
To date Labour have had nothing to show beyond crisis responses. We still have 190000 kids in poverty, 22000 on emergency housing lists, growing inequality and a climate crisis with no real solutions.
A state owned supermarket chain that radically forced competition on base level cost of living for a vast swathe of New Zealanders would be a legacy worthy of Labour.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueler to corporations.
Cyclone Gabrielle changes everything, you must accept that some big vision projects are necessary and not just more tinkering?
The people are hurting economically, is the Left so bereft of ideas beyond middle class identity politics virtue signals that we have nothing to offer them?
As I have said time and time again, if you don’t want the poor to have their economic misery manipulated by the Right, then do something about their economic misery!
The Supermarket Duopoly is still operating and still price gouging, we don’t have effective market competition, the Commerce Commission has the power and has previously recommended the State seize 30% of the existing Duopoly and force entry level competition as a 3rd player.
It requires spine.
Food prices are only going to go up, you need a solution to what will be a food prices crisis in 3 months time.
People will lose their shit if they can’t afford to eat.
What is the point of Bread and Butter politics if no one can afford to buy the bread or the butter?
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Unless we know what their overhead costs are like it’s difficult to make any sort of judgment as to whether they are in fact “screwing their customers”..
‘Extraordinary profits’: New Zealand considers breaking up supermarket duopoly
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/29/extraordinary-profits-new-zealand-considers-breaking-up-supermarket-duopoly-woolworths-foodstuffs
They don’t need to break them up they need to give them massive fines every time they are found to rip off consumers which is daily by fake specials etc.
Not exactly hard to catch, as their pricing should be electronic so having a so called special of 20% off, when the goods are higher than what they were a few months ago, isn’t really a special.
My god we have already established that their NET margins were higher that comparable businesses in places such as Europe. This was done ages ago. Next all these defenders of the indefensible will say restrictive covenants on land use were ok.
Then we get National supporters saying it’s Labours fault but they know full well Luxon and co won’t do anything. They are both f’ing useless in this area.
Didn’t Judith investigate and do nothing when National were last in power? Yes, yes she did. It is why National are dead silent on supermarket monopolies.
I try and keep food costs down by shopping around. Online and in retail shops.
Especially for fruit and veg which are at current all time highs.
BUT I can’t find anywhere consistently cheaper than the supermarkets!
Our two farmers markets are way more expensive than the supermarket.
Can anybody explain this?
People selling stuff are interested in making money, not friends.
Probably volume Scott, if a farmer can sell a whole crop at a set price there is some certainty in dealing with supermarkets. But what is becoming known is that supermarkets set tough prices with small print they can call on which has in some cases mean suppliers selling below cost because they are tied to that particular supermarket. Farmers supply fresh, pick for the market, have to transport the stuff in and serve it out themselves with time spent at the market which may not have customers if there is a downpour. There is a cost and we should have an economy that supports local growers. But they can be undercut by the large supmarkets.
In South Auckland they have lost much of their good growing areas for food because the developers are buying so much land for housing. If it isn’t zoned for food, then it will sell for speculator housing and the values go up and the rates also. The return from veges etc may not keep balance.
Doubting thomas you are gross. Get to and stick at the point which is actually how we are being screwed by mega-money from overseas (those in NZ who are so doing often shift perhaps to Oz). And how the gummint is in a jam and in supermarkets have stuck to it on the floor! (I have to give a laugh where I can.) Let’s not just offer throwaway lines about it though from our pinnacles of superiority.
The state already seems to have free supermarkets to their favoured few. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/04/creating-choices-social-supermarket-opening-in-far-north-after-success-in-wellington.html
The government seems to not care about working and professional families who pay the taxes as seem by their inability to fine supermarkets which are openly deceiving consumers.
In addition it is becoming normalised for people to feel entitled to get free everything in NZ aka constant teenage ram raids in NZ and blatant shop lifting, while those that pay the taxes are ignored – even to the extent that the government seems unable to fine the supermarkets.
Some kids are 13, breaking into car yards and smashing all the cars for example. (Is this growing problem because woke schools make them feel they are victims and entitled to do what ever they like while woke Oranga tamariki seem more interested in critical race theory than protecting all kids from parents that appear to be grooming them for crime).
Likewise rental properties, the woke cancelled mum and dad landlords to working and professional renters. However interest deductibility is still fine for Kainga ora housing.
Property used for emergency, transitional or social housing leased to the Crown (for example, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development or Kāinga Ora) or to a registered community housing provider landlords can still claim interest deductions.
For healthy homes houses rented by Kāinga Ora (formerly Housing New Zealand) and registered Community Housing Providers must comply by 1 July 2024. (Note that is more than a year away!)
Thus more and more rental stock has been diverted into high needs people for social housing which does not need to meet healthy homes standards and less available for working and professional class Kiwis that does.
Again Kiwis are held hostage over woke policy that is poorly planned, unfair and it used a some sort of pet hate punishment for their ‘privileged Kiwis’ aka renters who are not on Kainga ora and workers. Nurses for example who seem to struggle to get a pay rise.
Further more, Kainga ora tenants are not needed to have a health home yet (2024) and landlords are incentivised to rent to Kainga ora rather than working and professional renters.
The Commerce Commission allowing Woolworths Australia to but Foodtown back in the 1980’s did exactly the opposite of what the Commerce Commission was meant to do and that is “to protect the consumer” ?
Our politicians aren’t required to be useful, they are just talking gabs, white teeth, confident speakers and place holders for their clan. The decisions are largely made by policy purveyors of the private type or slanted that way. They don’t have to have any vision and are probably the sons and daughters of people who made money in the past economy.
Just keep on sending the buckets round, collecting tax on those who manage to get or earn observable money, mend them when a hole occurs, smile, speak confidently, if you can’t make it then fake it. We regard them with fond nostalgia like the Cuba Street bucket fountain. Where would we be without them??