An unprecedented shake-up of the grocery sector will see the supermarket duopoly forced to sell groceries to their competitors at set prices and terms if they fail to adequately wholesale market voluntarily, the Government has announced yesterday.
“No ifs or buts, greater competition, a wider range and cheaper products will be provided to New Zealanders through these changes,” Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, David Clark said.
“The Commerce Commission found New Zealand supermarkets earn $1 million a day in excess profits because of a lack of competition. These regulatory measures will deliver a more competitive wholesale grocery market.
“With New Zealanders experiencing pain at the checkout this is one action we are taking to tackle the causes of cost of living increases.
“Ultimately we have decided to take stronger action than the Commerce Commission suggested. They said any wholesale regime should be voluntary. We’re not confident that will deliver the results consumers deserve.
“Alongside their retail stores, supermarkets have behind the scenes wholesale operations. The changes announced today will ultimately require the duopoly to open these up to would-be competitors.
“Our plan will give a leg up to the likes of smaller retailers and new market entrants. It means other retailers will now be able to source and sell a wider range of groceries at better prices.
“Under these changes the existing duopoly will be required to negotiate wholesale offerings to their competitors on commercial terms. However if those prices are not what we would expect in a competitive wholesale market the new Grocery Commissioner will be able to impose additional regulation to force fairer prices.
“Ultimately if these interventions don’t deliver a fair deal new regulations can be utilised to require the major retailers to provide wholesale supply at certain terms, including price and range.
“The new system will incentivise the major supermarkets to play fair. But if they don’t the Commission will be able to use powerful new tools to make them do so.
“Supermarkets are well advised to lock in good-faith wholesale arrangements on their own terms, or we will have no problem stepping in to make it happen.
“The grocery sector needs to change, so that competing retailers – whether they are independent dairies, smaller chains, or a new entrant – can offer a wider selection of products at competitive prices.
“Alongside these improvements to wholesale access, the Government is also building flexibility into its approach to a collective bargaining exemption for grocery suppliers. Many suppliers, particularly small ones, are unable to effectively negotiate terms of supply with the major grocery retailers on their own. This exemption will allow greater scope for them to do this collectively, helping to address imbalances in bargaining power.
“The Government is working to address the systemic lack of grocery competition in New Zealand. Today’s announcement is just the latest in our plan to deliver a fairer deal at the checkout for Kiwis,” David Clark said.
David Clark is just a scar crow. Just virtue signalling and none of these measures are going to stop the duopoly and exploitation. Jabcinda and his crew cannot be trusted and they just work for the Globalists and their agents. Building material, goceries and every other stuff is several times higher in NZ compared to otrher countries.
Using MSM, labour is creating a mock fight and nothoing is going to change in essence.
No help to any market, just pushy socialists trying to re-write reality.
There may be only two main players but they have to live too. How much know-how does the Labour gang have to arbitrarily set trade margins? This is akin to tax fiddling without authority. If there is a margin they disagree with, that is subject to tax in the regular way.
How could we have a a larger market in such a tiny country?
But the cost of groceries has nothing to do money printing and supply issues nothing to do with lockdown and other covid bullshit.NO its the fault of supermarkets and Vladimir Putin
If the government promises you a new law is gonna make food cheaper, you can pretty much guarantee that by this time next year you’ll be paying more.
I don’t for an instant think this govt will do anything to help small businesses. They made it quite clear when they only allowed the big supermarkets to trade during lockdown who they were interested in helping and who they weren’t.
Jacindas boss Klaus Schwab is only interested in large corporations owned by Blackrock and the likes so she will be following his orders. Destroy small businesses to take away peoples ability to rely on themselves and turn them to become dependent on govt and therefore easily controlled.
You know how to make something expensive? You make sure it is in short supply. Monopoly means exactly that. If farmers do not accept the price offered, they are left with fruit and other produce going off. Yes, there is a monopoly on distribution, however this is a smokescreen to the larger problem. Our nations farms are being turned back into forests because it is now far more lucrative to grow trees than cows. That is the single most threat to the supply of food to the nation and the world. The carbon credits against the never ending compliance costs for farming is the true enemy to supply of low cost produce. Effectively, farmers are being paid huge sums not to make food. This is not miss management, it is a reduction of food. Those carbon credits are being funded by Blackrock and Vanguard. Wakeup New Zealand, wakeup world. The major parties have been compromised. Here is how you fight back. Do not buy or use any product that Blackrock or Vanguard owns major shares in. Even if it is free or close to free. The reason why it is free is to force ALL competition out of the market. When you are worth a combined US$17 trillion, you can give away your product for a decade until there is no more competition. That is why you do not have a people’s Government, you have a puppet Government employed by a cooperation.
Soon the govt will own all the land all the houses, and they will control how you spend your money and where you go.
Think this is a conspiracy? Look up “you will,own nothing and be happy”. They want us to rent everything and eat bugs.
They are coming for small businesses, farms, Supermarkets. Look up “stakeholder capitalism”. They want big corporations to win and control everything. Look up the WEF partners.
They want to ‘hack’ humans and put a chip inside so they can control health and access data. look up Neuralink, look up “internet of bodies” look up Noah Yuval Harari from the WEF.
They want us to travel less because “climate change”.
Does this sound like a ‘fun’? No it sounds like communism, fascism, totalitarian, nazism and authoritarian all wrapped up in one nasty package.
Forget freedom, forget democracy – IF YOU LET IT HAPPEN. DONT LET IT. Make EVERY single person going along with this BS accountable for their treason.
Don’t vote for national or labour, don’t comply with their scare tactics and BS, don’t listen to mainstream media and keep teaching other people about what they are trying to do to us, our kids, our grandchildren. NONE of us EVER voted for this sh!t.