Australia’s big supermarkets will face fresh scrutiny with a Senate inquiry to investigate their market power and pricing decisions, amid concerns they have profiteered during an inflationary period marked by fast-rising food costs.
Australia’s big supermarkets recently reported bumper annual profits at the same time as grocery prices soared and households grappled with rising living costs.
The country’s biggest chain, Woolworths, recorded a dramatic lift in profit margins for its Australian food business to well above pre-pandemic levels, prompting concerns it has used the inflationary period to inflate prices beyond the additional costs it faces.
Coles and Woolworths have consistently denied they price gouge and cite productivity improvements and cost efficiencies as part of the reason for their healthy returns.
“Australia’s competition laws don’t deal with two major factors of concern – excessive prices and concentrated market structure,” Fels said.
While parliamentary committees have recently looked into broader cost-of-living issues, including grocery prices, the new Senate inquiry will be the first to specifically focus on the major chains.
The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Australia’s big supermarkets will face fresh scrutiny with a Senate inquiry to investigate their market power and pricing decisions, amid concerns they have profiteered during an inflationary period marked by fast-rising food costs.
Australia’s big supermarkets recently reported bumper annual profits at the same time as grocery prices soared and households grappled with rising living costs.
The country’s biggest chain, Woolworths, recorded a dramatic lift in profit margins for its Australian food business to well above pre-pandemic levels, prompting concerns it has used the inflationary period to inflate prices beyond the additional costs it faces.
Coles and Woolworths have consistently denied they price gouge and cite productivity improvements and cost efficiencies as part of the reason for their healthy returns.
“Australia’s competition laws don’t deal with two major factors of concern – excessive prices and concentrated market structure,” Fels said.
While parliamentary committees have recently looked into broader cost-of-living issues, including grocery prices, the new Senate inquiry will be the first to specifically focus on the major chains.
The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Probably by holding wage increases below CPI, and increasing prices above CPI, thereby reducing wage cost as a percentage of revenue.
Yeah, the Coles workers were striking while the Greens were protesting for this