ACCC to monitor supermarket pricing under new code

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will begin monitoring supermarket pricing from 1 July, when new excessive pricing provisions under the Food and Grocery Code come into effect. The prohibition applies to supermarket retailers with annual revenue exceeding $30 billion and currently covers only Coles and Woolworths. The ACCC has released new guidelines outlining how it will monitor compliance and assess whether either retailer has breached the prohibition. Rather than applying a fixed pricing threshold, the regulator will assess pricing on a case by case basis. It will consider a range of factors, including the cost of supplying a product, what constitutes a reasonable retail margin and any other relevant circumstances, before determining whether a grocery product has been priced excessively. “We know that grocery prices continue to be a key concern for households. The excessive pricing prohibition provides us with another tool within our broader toolkit to ...