{"id":1628,"date":"2022-05-06T11:50:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T23:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1628"},"modified":"2022-05-06T11:50:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T23:50:23","slug":"consumer-new-zealand-sceptical-about-countdown-price-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1628","title":{"rendered":"Consumer New Zealand sceptical about Countdown price freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

The country’s consumer watchdog says Countdown’s move to freeze some of its prices is positive, but the supermarket’s profits are still sky-high.<\/p>\n

\"Larger<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Cole Eastham-Farrelly<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Countdown is putting a\u00a0temporary price freeze on 500 items<\/a>\u00a0over winter in response to the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n

Countdown says it has identified a variety of winter staples including: tinned tomatoes, butter, cheese, sugar, flour, shaved ham and more.<\/p>\n

Whatever price these are on 9 May is the price they will stay at for the winter months, no matter what happens with inflation.<\/p>\n

Consumer New Zealand chief executive Jon Duffy said it was an acknowledgement that groceries were not affordable.<\/p>\n

“This is an acknowledgement by Countdown of the role they have played in driving up the cost of living for a lot of New Zealanders around grocery prices, it’s a shame that it didn’t happen earlier but it’s good that we’re making progress.<\/p>\n

“In my mind it does seem strange if we were to be applauding a duopolist from taking a pause from the excessive profits that they’re making on us just for winter and we should be asking about how we got to this place in the first place.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Commerce Commission has found<\/a>\u00a0that the supermarket sector is making more than $1 million in excess profits a day, Duffy said.<\/p>\n

He said, even at the frozen prices, the items will still be bringing in big profits for the chain.<\/p>\n

Duffy said it was likely Countdown had already paid for three months worth of supplies at a set price, so the supermarket might not lose much money.<\/p>\n

He said although he applauds the sentiment behind what Countdown is doing, but the sector has been under a sustained period of negative public sentiment.<\/p>\n

“So I think if anyone needs to be applauded it’s probably the shoppers of New Zealand who have really made their voice heard and it finally made it, I guess to the boardroom at Woolworths and it’s meant that Countdown has taken this move to address that negative public sentiment.”<\/p>\n

Duffy said if there were normal competitive pressures on the supermarket sector, “this would have happened a lot earlier because Foodstuffs and Countdown would have been completing more on price”.<\/p>\n

It is clear that competition is not working well for consumers, as highlighted in a Commerce Commission report, when the only way consumers can get a break is when one of the duopolists feels it is a good public relations move, he said.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how Foodstuffs which owns New World and Pak ‘n Save supermarkets deals with this price freeze, Duffy said.<\/p>\n

He said in many places people only have the option of shopping at a Foodstuffs owned supermarket because that is the only option available.<\/p>\n

Duffy said he does not think this will ultimately increase competition between the two supermarket chains because “the underlying market structure is broken”.<\/p>\n

“The danger is it distracts from the problem still exists, really it’s just taking a minor pause on the excessive profits the duopoly are able to extract.”<\/p>\n

He said it is likely Countdown prices will go back up again after the three month period ends. (Source – RNZ)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The country’s consumer watchdog says Countdown’s move to freeze some of its prices is positive, but the supermarket’s profits are still sky-high. Photo:\u00a0RNZ \/ Cole Eastham-Farrelly Countdown is putting a\u00a0temporary price freeze on 500 items\u00a0over winter in response to the rising cost of living. Countdown says it has identified a variety of winter staples including: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,174],"tags":[28,51,59],"class_list":["post-1628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-nz-news","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-featured"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1629,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}