Australian farmers have responded angrily to claims that large supermarket chains are poised to report tremendous profits because they have the ability to pass on rising expenses to customers as experts uncover evidence of price gouging on necessities.
Market experts anticipate that major retailers, including supermarket behemoths Coles and Woolworths, will report billion-dollar profits for the fiscal year 2021–2022, even as the rising cost of living is biting consumers.
According to stock market expert Johannes Faul, earnings at the very least would remain “stable” since supermarkets could boost prices as necessary.
Craig Stafford, a different expert, said that despite the fact that customers are paying more due to inflation, supermarkets are “in terrific position.”
The profit forecasts came as an independent financial industry expert urged for an investigation by the ACCC after saying there “appears to be evidence of price gouging” in supermarkets.
Guy Gaeta, an Orange cherry farmer, told Daily Mail Australia that it “absolutely annoys me out” that retailers could get wealthier despite rising inflation while families and fighters are forced to make cuts.
It’s startling that you can’t use inflation as a justification for making money. They are brutal,” he said.
Yes, everyone is paying more for supplemental expenses like petrol. However, it is price gouging when you say, “Well, we’ve had 7% inflation, so we’ll simply bump up prices 10%,” don’t you think?
They obviously want to purchase more Ferraris because it’s easy money for them; it’s simply a scam.
“I don’t believe it’s right that you’re making money off of people because of inflation,” I said. I thought nobody profited from inflation.
According to customer surveys conducted by Martin North’s business, Digital Finance Analytics, supermarket prices have increased by 20% or more in certain situations, much above the CPI.
He said that the price increases customers paid at the register were more than the increases in “input expenses” that supermarkets had to pay.
If you look closely, it’s obvious to me that these firms are using the chance to boost their profits and protect their distribution to shareholders by raising their prices beyond the increase in input costs. In other words, businesses may raise prices at the cost of customers in order to safeguard profit margins.
According to Mr. North, price gouging occurs in “the retail sector, oil business, and gas industry.”
At a time when customers cannot afford to pay more than they should, he said that there was evidence of price gouging.
Chris Stillard, a persimmon farmer from New South Wales who lives close to the Victorian border, said he was not surprised by the shops’ optimism about future earnings.
I’m a farmer, not an economist, but maybe that’s what happens when two stores dominate 70% of the market, he added.
“Supermarkets are excused from responsibility when there is a perfect justification, like inflation.”
Mr Stillard argued continuous price hikes on all types of goods should never happen. According to him, prices should decrease to reflect times when certain food categories are oversupplied, such as apples now that China has ceased importing them.
There are no rules against price gouging in Australia. It’s murder in blue,’ he said.
Consumers shouldn’t “simply cop” exorbitant costs, he advised: Go window shopping.
The cost of shopping at a large supermarket was shown to be much more costly on at least one day by Daily Mail Australia last month.
Using the same shopping list and weights, Daily Mail purchased a week’s supply of fruit, vegetables, and eggs from Woolworths and from Paddy’s Market in western Sydney. The cost of the supermarket behemoth was almost twice as high.
Coles told Daily Mail Australia: ‘At Coles, our major emphasis is on keeping the cost of the family shop low and offering outstanding value to our consumers.
Over 1,000 goods have had their prices lowered since January from among our more than 20,000 product offering.
As we work hard to provide consumers exceptional value in cooperation with our suppliers via programmes like Prices Dropped for Winter and Price Freeze, as well as the hundreds of weekly promotions, we will continue to be focused on managing industry-wide inflationary pressures, according to Woolworths.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, prices for fruits, vegetables, breakfast cereals, meat, bread, eggs, oils, butter, and margarines all increased significantly in the previous year (ABS).
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), the primary indicator of inflation, was announced by the ABS last week and revealed a 6.1% increase over the previous year.
The cost of vegetables had the largest increase in a staple food item over the last year, rising 7.3%, mostly due to the ongoing floods in southeast Queensland and New South Wales.