{"id":941191,"date":"2026-10-26T05:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T05:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941191\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T05:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T05:32:14","slug":"perfection-fresh-admits-fixing-the-price-of-vegetables-sold-to-aldi-in-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941191\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfection Fresh admits fixing the price of vegetables sold to Aldi in NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s second-largest fresh produce supplier, Perfection Fresh Australia, has admitted to “cartel conduct” by fixing the price of broccoli, cauliflower and iceberg lettuce sold to Aldi stores in New South Wales.<\/p>\n

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) began civil action in the Federal Court<\/a> in September 2025 against four vegetable-growing companies, and three individuals, including Perfection Fresh.<\/p>\n

The group was accused of working together to illegally fix the price of fresh produce sold at Aldi stores in NSW, Victoria and Queensland between 2018 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The ACCC accused four vegetable suppliers of fixing the price of fresh produce. (ABC News: Anna Chisholm)<\/p>\n

The ACCC said Perfection Fresh had admitted to engaging in cartel conduct on 11 occasions between 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Perfection Fresh has agreed to pay a $12 million penalty, subject to Federal Court approval at a later date.<\/p>\n

The case against the remaining suppliers \u2014 Hydro Produce, Veli Velisha Fresh Produce and Velisha National Farms, and M Fragapane & Sons \u2014 is continuing.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Luke Woodward says cartel behaviour can increase prices and harm consumers. (Supplied: ACCC)<\/p>\n

In a statement, ACCC Commissioner Luke Woodward said cartel conduct “undermines competition”.<\/p>\n

“[It] can increase prices, harming consumers and raising the cost of doing business,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Enforcing cartel laws and protecting competition in the supply of fresh food are ongoing priorities for the ACCC.”<\/p>\n

Perfection Fresh Australia, which is based in NSW, supplies a broad range of produce including cauliflower, broccoli, iceberg lettuce, Brussels spouts, broccolini and celery to all states and territories.<\/p>\n

The company admitted to price fixing on 11 occasions, but the court can penalise only 10 instances: nine contraventions and one attempted contravention.<\/p>\n

The other falls outside the period in which a penalty can apply.<\/p>\n

A Perfection Fresh Australia spokesperson said the company took full responsibility for its actions.<\/p>\n

“We deeply regret any impact it may have had on our relationships and are working hard to rebuild trust with our stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“We have fully cooperated with the ACCC since becoming aware of the issue and have taken significant steps to strengthen our leadership, governance and compliance systems.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s second-largest fresh produce supplier, Perfection Fresh Australia, has admitted to “cartel conduct” by fixing the price of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11275,64,63,26399,340896,99,508223,508224,508222,508218,508221,508219,2185,508220],"class_list":["post-941191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-accc","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-competition-and-consumer-commission","tag-broccoli","tag-business","tag-cauliflower","tag-iceberg-lettuce","tag-luke-woodward","tag-perfection-fresh","tag-perfection-fresh-australia","tag-price-fixing-cartel","tag-rural","tag-vegetable-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941191","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=941191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}