{"id":920951,"date":"2026-10-08T19:04:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920951\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T19:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:04:39","slug":"coles-and-woolworths-christmas-supermarkets-champion-ai-shopping-unique-product-ranges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920951\/","title":{"rendered":"Coles and Woolworths Christmas: Supermarkets champion AI shopping, unique product ranges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jessica<\/p>\n

October 8, 2026 \u2014 8:20pm<\/p>\n

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No one hard launches Christmas earlier than retailers do.<\/p>\n

Last year, Aldi kicked things <\/a>off with a bang. This year, Australia\u2019s two biggest supermarkets \u2013 Coles and Woolworths \u2013 are promising to bring their best, with a bigger-than-ever range, and a pledge to customers of cheaper items and less time spent slaving away in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"ColesColes launches its 2026 Christmas range at The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.Getty Images<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become an annual end-of-year tradition for Coles to launch its Christmas range at a long lunch in early October. Canapes, crisp arancini, beef ribs, baked salmon, fresh salads and various iterations of ham were on full display for staff, suppliers, business partners and media invited to this year\u2019s feast.<\/p>\n

This year, Woolworths decided to host a launch event of its own. As Coles brand ambassador Curtis Stone carved up legs of ham for guests, Woolies invited media to its Christmas display of roast meats (\u201ccarvery corner\u201d), with black forest tarts and carefully constructed gingerbread houses in tow.<\/p>\n

If there was any indication of which event you\u2019d rather be at, one could ask Andy Allen. The MasterChef judge co-owns Three Blue Ducks in Sydney\u2019s inner-south suburb of Rosebery, where Woolworths held its event \u2013 but Allen himself was in the thick of Coles\u2019 scheduled festivities, in Sydney\u2019s Royal Botanic Garden.<\/p>\n

\"ColesColes CEO Leah Weckert at the launch.Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

The big-picture themes for both retailers are the same. Cost-of-living pressures are shredding household budgets. People are spreading their shopping across different retailers. Rewards points are being saved and cashed in during silly season.<\/p>\n

Value for money never seems to go out of fashion, but there is a new feature stalking the supermarket battleground this Christmas: AI.<\/p>\n

Coles is not only trying to win over shoppers \u2013 it\u2019s trying to win a piece of your AI-compiled shopping list.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are developing a list, and then they pop it into ChatGPT or Gemini and ask it to tell them where to buy each item,\u201d Coles chief executive Leah Weckert said.<\/p>\n

Weckert and her team learnt a few key things from some Coles-commissioned consumer research: nearly a third of families are using AI tools to figure out which retailer is selling items at the lowest price. Four in five are happy to use shortcuts to save time at Christmas, as long as taste isn\u2019t compromised.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cSpiral\u201cSpiral ham\u201d, partially pre-cut to save on carving time, will feature extensively in supermarkets this Christmas. Getty Images<\/p>\n

And showing up on the shopping list as the cheapest option is no joke: more than 200 items in Coles\u2019 Christmas range are priced at $10 or less.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur brief was to make Christmas faster and more inexpensive,\u201d Stone told Coles\u2019 guests on Thursday. \u201cWe want you to take the credit this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hokkaido scallops and triple cream brie wrapped in prosciutto are designed for the air fryer. \u201cSpiral ham\u201d, an innovation that emerged out of the US, is partially pre-cut to save on carving time. A beef rib roast has already been slow-cooked for five hours, so all there is left to do is reheat it.<\/p>\n

Woolworths is onto the same themes, touting duck fat potatoes with truffle butter and a stuffed rolled pork belly that has been slow-cooked for seven hours, as well as a \u201cfestive sausage\u201d for summer barbecuing.<\/p>\n

\"WoolworthsWoolworths has invited influencers to sample its 2026 range of Christmas puddings and pies.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to the end of the year, and actually, people still want it to be easy, so convenience is a big thing,\u201d said Woolworths retail managing director Annette Karantoni.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s both in the way you shop, it\u2019s in the tools that you use to shop, and then it\u2019s actually in the product itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

On new product development, Coles has mastered the art of the collab: a team-up with Arnott\u2019s has delivered a Mint Slice trifle. Farmer co-op Norco has made a tiramisu ice cream. A new range of Curtis Stone kitchenware, redeemable with points, includes an air fryer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is exclusive to Coles,\u201d said Weckert. \u201cThe more of those innovative, inspirational products we have, the more reasons there are to come and shop at Coles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WoolworthsWoolworths retail managing director Annette Karantoni.<\/p>\n

Coles has been consistently on the front foot when it comes to broadening its own-brand range to scoop up more customers. About 35 per cent of Coles\u2019 supermarket sales are from products it developed itself; this proportion rises around Christmas, traditionally the most important time for retailers.<\/p>\n

But the supermarket giant has been slow to launch its own AI shopping assistant, and will be stuck playing catch-up to Woolworths, which launched its chatbot, Olive, earlier this year (albeit not without some teething issues<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Woolworths\u2019Woolworths\u2019 sweet treat station at its 2026 Christmas launch event on Thursday.Woolworths<\/p>\n

Shoppers are using AI to plan for holidays, find recipe inspiration and check prices, according to Weckert, who pointed to Walmart\u2019s Sparky, an AI assistant that finds and recommends relevant products and synthesises reviews, as well as Meta\u2019s newly launched Muse<\/a>, which helps you find and buy items in the chat.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Woolworths<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not got an AI tool yet,\u201d said Weckert. \u201cI can\u2019t commit to a date. But we\u2019re actively working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers are also learning quickly when it comes to AI. \u201cIf the tools are there for [customers], they will absolutely use them,\u201d said Woolworths\u2019 Karatoni.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re using it to write a list to find where a product is, particularly at Christmas, because it\u2019s not a product you\u2019re normally necessarily looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really interested to see what Olive does this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Close\"JessicaJessica Yun<\/a> is a business reporter covering retail and food for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October 8, 2026 \u2014 8:20pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-920951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}