Same masthead, two different perspectives - but what they both agree on is that Coles & Woolworths are garnering billions in profit from their metropolitan & regional supermarkets

Same masthead, two different perspectives - but what both agree on is that Coles Group Ltd & Woolworths Group Ltd are garnering billions in profit.

The Guardian, 27 August 2024:

Politicians will declare war on ‘cost of living’ and pundits will argue about inflation. The real point is the profits come at workers’ expenses

The latest massive $1.1bn profit reported by Coles will doubtless produce a new round of hand-wringing about the “cost of living”. Governments will produce initiatives aimed at capping or reducing prices. Pundits will use a variety of measures to argue as to whether such measures are inflationary. Then there will be debates about whether splitting up Coles and Woolworths into smaller chains would enhance competition. And the Reserve Bank will be encouraged to pusheven harder to return inflation to its target range.

But these responses, focused on the cost of goods, miss the point. Coles and Woolworths have increased their margins, yes – but prices for groceries have increased broadly in line with other goods. The real driver of supermarket profits is their ability to drive down the prices they pay to suppliers.

But the input that matters here is labour and it is here that the supermarkets are making big gains at the expense of their workers. Across the board, wages have failed to keep pace with prices over the last five years or more.

At least for the supermarkets, this won’t change any time soon......

TheGuardian, 27 August 2024:

Greens accuse company of price-gouging, as supermarket attributes sales boost to seasonal campaigns and rising digital revenue

Coles has posted a surge in revenue from its groceries business and expanded supermarket profit margins to the highest level recorded in the pandemic era, even as shoppers grapple with fast-rising household costs.

The revenue bump underpinned a robust rise in annual profit to $1.1bn. It threatens to draw Australia’s second largest chain back into the public limelight as cost-of-livingpressures become a central political issue for the next federal election.

Coles chief executive, Leah Weckert, said on Tuesday the supermarkets business was enjoying strong momentum, driven by “a lot of Australians choosing to eat out less and eating at home more”.....

Coles $1.1 billion annual profit came off the back of a $10.5 billion gross profit for the 2023-24 financial year.

Woolworths is set to announce its annual financial results today, Wednesday 28 August. Last year at 30 June 2023 it recorded a gross profit of $17.1 billion and a net profit of $1.7 billion.

What I am sure the majority of ordinary households in both metropolitan and rural & regional areas of the country will agree upon, is that putting food on the table, toiletries in the bathroom, detergent in the kitchen & laundry or petrol in the car is an unenviable task these days.

 

Coles supermarkets now have new purchasing rules due to coronavirus panic buying as of 14 March 2020

As the situation around Coronavirus continues to develop, we believe that everyone in the community should have access to their share of grocery items, particularly the elderly.

Following the toilet paper restrictions introduced last week we have seen compassion from customers respecting these limits.

Our team members and suppliers have also been working as hard as possible delivering more products to stores every day and stocking shelves as quickly as possible. I would ask all customers to continue to respect and support our team members, particularly if a product is unavailable or the checkout queues are longer than normal.

To continue to allow everyone the opportunity to purchase staple items, we will be implementing a couple of further changes throughout our stores:

1.   From Saturday we will limit the purchase of pasta, flour, dry rice, paper towels, paper tissues and hand sanitisers to 2 items per customer. We will also be introducing some additional limits on certain items in each store. These can vary between stores, so please visit your local Coles for more information.

2.   From today we will be temporarily suspending our change-of-mind refund policy to discourage over-purchasing. If you have already purchased additional items you no longer want, please look at donating them to community organisations or neighbours who have been struggling to purchase them during this time.

Further information on Coronavirus can be found at www.health.gov.au

Thanks for your ongoing support and patience in these unprecedented times. We will get through this together!

Best wishes,

Steven Cain

CEO, Coles Group

The ACCC had addressed Coles misleading advertising about its in-house baked bread and rolls - now it's time for someone to look into product quality

 Two slices from a Coles loaf in which approx. one quarter of the slices had hollow middles, July 2013
A problem which exists to varying degrees to this day

AdNews 18 Jun 2014:

Coles has been cooked by the Federal Court and found guilty of misleading consumers with claims its bread and rolls were baked in-house despite being shipped frozen from overseas.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched action against the supermarket giant last year after consumers – led by former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett – began to question the veracity of the claims.

Coles had claimed that because the baking process had been completed in ovens in store, the promotions of being baked fresh in store were acceptable.

The bread and roll ranges were promoted at Coles’ supermarkets with in-house bakeries as ‘Baked Today, Sold Today’ and in some cases ‘Freshly Baked In-Store’.

Federal Court Chief Justice James Allsop handed down his judgement this afternoon and the retailer now faces potential substantial fines for each of the breaches of the Trade Practices Act.

In his judgment, Chief Justice Allsop said “It is not the place of the court to provide an advice … as to how Coles might sell bread that has been par-baked from frozen product … A start would, however, be to make it tolerably clear to the public that the recent baking was the completion of a baking process that had taken place sometime before, off site, and that 'freshly baked' actually meant the completion of the baking process of frozen product prepared and frozen off site by suppliers.”

ACCC chairman Rob Sims said that Coles behaviour not only mislead consumers placed smaller businesses that baked their bread on the premises at a competitive disadvantage.