Nick Hogendijk News Today

It's hoped more competition will come about following the Government's war with the supermarket duopoly

OPINION: Regulator faces two options on duopoly: opt to Countdown for a new world or Pak 'n Save it in.

Lack of competition not to blame for high grocery prices, as overseas comparisons dismissed and supermarket bosses point to NZ's remoteness and supply chain costs.

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....

Hexis provides training and advice to suppliers of consumer goods. The claim of heavy-handiness by Foodstuffs comes amid rising tensions on the eve of the publication by the Commerce Commission of its draft market study into the $22 billion groceries industry. Stuff Feelings are running high in the groceries industry ahead of the publication of a competition report on Thursday. The commission is widely expected to recommend a new mandatory code – supported by Rich but opposed by Foodstuffs...