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NZ food retail needs more competition, report argues
By Dean Best 04 Aug 2021 (Last Updated August 4th, 2021 21:56)
The study, commissioned by the New Zealand government, has argued the country’s grocery market is not as competitive as it could be.
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New Zealand should make it easier for food retailers to enter the sector, where a “duopoly” is hitting suppliers and consumers, a government-commissioned study has said.
The country needs to see more competition in its food retail market, where local retailer Foodstuffs and Australia’s Woolworths are the two largest players. Their combined market share has been estimated at around 85%.
There is no bigger stick the commission could have reached for. Rawlings did not rule out Foodstuffs being required to sell its entire Pak ’n Save franchise if push came to shove, saying the method of any enforced sales would be something it would need to consult on. But it seems more likely the commission would want to see a spread of sales from different chains in different locations, if it came to that. “We would envisage we would be looking for a national spread of stores,” Rawlings said, commenting on the nature of any sell-offs. “At this stage, we don’t contemplate it would necessarily target one particular retailer and one particular chain.”
The lie of neoliberalism is that unregulated markets lead to competitive utopia.
They don’t.
They lead to an elite corporate oligarchy who ensure their dominance via duopoly or monopoly. A plutocratic cartel who amputate monopoly rentals from the economy and call it business.
The brutal strength of the State is required to step in and break up such cartels when they bubble to the top and that’s exactly what the Commerce Commission must demand in its reports on the Supermarket duopoly in NZ.
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The Commerce Commission’s draft report into competition in the supermarket sector has found that competition is not working well for consumers and the main problem is the structure of the New Zealand grocery market, in which new players find it hard to compete.
Thursday, 29 July 2021, 12:39 pm
The New Zealand Food & Grocery Council welcomes the
Commerce Commission’s draft report on its market study
into the grocery sector.
“This is a most thorough
report that delves very deeply into all the market and
competition issues concerning consumers, retailers and
suppliers,” says Chief Executive Katherine
Rich.
“The Commission has left no stone unturned and
has compiled a meticulous and accurate reflection of the
grocery market.
“The report shows there are big
problems in the market, and consumers would get better
prices, wider ranges, and better quality if there was
increased competition.
“It accurately reflects the