The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has said it will address anti-competitive behaviour and misleading pricing in the supermarket sector.
According to farmer organisation, Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF), the announcement was included in the organisation’s compliance and enforcement priorities for the coming financial year, announced at a business event in Sydney.
ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb said in the year ahead, the commission will conduct dedicated investigations and enforcement activities to address competition and consumer concerns in the sector.
“A priority is to address competition concerns in the supermarket and retail sector, which will focus on firms with market power and conduct that impacts small business or contributes to higher prices for consumers,” she said.
“Therefore, one of the enduring ACCC priorities is to address anti-competitive agreements and practices, misuse of market power and cartel conduct so that competition may be fostered at all levels of the supply chain.
“Our work will also address the potential imbalance of power more broadly between larger businesses that impose standard form contracts on one hand, and small businesses and consumers on the other, as reflected in our priority on unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts,” she added.
ADF said that the focus comes at a crucial time as dairy farmers grapple with increasing costs of production and declining farmgate milk prices, while supermarket profit margins remain strong.
“The ACCC’s 2025–2026 priorities include addressing anti-competitive behaviour and misleading pricing in the supermarket sector. This directly aligns with ADF’s call in the mandatory food and grocery code of conduct consultation,” the ADF said.
“We successfully argued that a mandatory code would provide greater price transparency, enforce accountability on retailers, and protect farmers from unfair trading practices.”
Competition and pricing
Back in Ireland, last week, Niamh Lenehan, the CEO of An Rialálaí Agraibhia (Agri-Food Regulator) confirmed that the board of the regulator had written to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon to seek an “urgent meeting”.
The purpose of the meeting, Lenehan said, would be to discuss the regulator’s request for additional powers, which was submitted last September.
These additional powers would allow for the regulator to compel businesses in the agri-food supply chain to provide price and market information for reporting purposes.
Speaking at a meeting of horticulture and potato grower members of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) on February 25, Lenehan told attendees that efforts to produce the envisaged report on price and market trends in the horticulture sector had not been possible.
This, she said, was because a number of businesses did not provide the requested data. As a result, a report on the horticulture sector using only publicly available data is now being finalised and will be published on the regulator’s website shortly.
Lenehan told the meeting: “Similar to the regulator’s initial efforts to produce a report on the egg sector, the production of the envisaged horticulture report has not been possible as a number of businesses did not provide the requested data.
“While we were pleased to see all but one of the contacted retailers and wholesalers engage with the regulator and provide data, a number of other businesses across the supply chain have not yet provided data,” she added.
