Food prices not increasing like petrol prices

The Herald reports:

The Greens are taking aim at New Zealand’s supermarket “duopoly” and have called on the Commerce Commission to investigate the sector after it’s done looking into petrol companies.

This comes a day after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she “would not be surprised” if the commission conducted a market study into the supermarket sector.

Green MP Gareth Hughes said there is “long-standing” knowledge there is an issue in the supermarket sector.

He said groups such as Consumer NZ have been calling for an investigation for a while, adding that New Zealand does not have a code of conduct despite the fact one exists in Australia.

“When you look at the facts on the ground, Kiwis are paying more than our Australian cousins – in fact, more than any other developed countries on basically everything.”

I’m not against the Commerce Commission doing a market study. I’m not sure the supermarket sector would be a priority though.

Unlike petrol prices, food prices have not been increasing greatly in recent years. Here’s the annual average increase for each three year period since 1999.

• 00 – 02: 3.8%
• 03 – 05: 1.3%
• 06 – 08: 6.1%
• 09 – 11: 2.8%
• 12 – 14: 0.7%
• 15 – 17: 0.6%

So food prices since 2011 have been increasing at under 1% a year. In the last 12 months food prices have actually remained constant.

So bigger fish to fry.