November 17, 2020 12:03pm by David Farrar

The supermarket study

Supermarkets will be subjected to a year-long “market study” by the Commerce Commission to see if they are offering consumers fair prices and their suppliers a fair deal.

Those two things are somewhat contradictory. The better the deal for suppliers, then the higher the prices are for consumers.

Groceries are one of our most regular expenses, so we want to make sure pricing is fair,” Clark said.
The average household spent about 17 per cent of its weekly expenses on food, and that had been increasing year on year, he said.

What is interesting is if we look at the increase in food prices over the last three Government terms, as measured by the Food Price Index.