{"id":245484,"date":"2026-01-22T04:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/245484\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T04:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T04:00:07","slug":"woolworths-warned-that-it-might-be-breaking-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/245484\/","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths warned that it might be breaking the law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any breaches of the code are breaches of the Grocery Industry Competition Act.<\/a><\/p>\n

Commerce Commission head of groceries Dr Alice Hume said Woolworths, Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island together controlled about 82% of New Zealand\u2019s grocery market. She warned losing access to supermarket shelves could effectively be the end of the road for smaller suppliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility of products being removed from shelves is a significant weight on suppliers that can reinforce the power imbalance between major supermarkets and smaller suppliers,\u201d Hume said.<\/p>\n

Levelling the playing field<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk of losing market access can lead to suppliers accepting conditions that aren\u2019t beneficial to them, and a lack of trust about how supermarkets make these decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the commission\u2019s review, it identified and investigated instances where it considered Woolworths was at risk of failing to meet its obligations under the code.<\/p>\n

The commission said it issued Woolworths<\/a> with a warning for what it believed was a likely breach of the act, noting that only a court can determine whether a breach had occurred.<\/p>\n

Woolworths has since updated its processes to meet its obligations, the commission said.<\/p>\n

In reply, Woolworths supplied the following statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take our obligations under the Grocery Supply Code seriously and we are proud of the strong relationships we have with our suppliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work hard to make sure we comply with all of our obligations under the code. If we become aware of potential issues, we fix them as quickly as we can.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reviewed and updated all of our templates when the code first came into force, but the Commission expressed concerns about whether one of our template letters included specific language that was required under the code.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully co-operated with the Commission\u2019s inquiries, and have updated our template letter in light of the Commission\u2019s views.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hume said the updated code played a crucial role in helping level the playing field between major supermarkets and smaller suppliers, and that the Commission took compliance seriously.<\/p>\n

She said range reviews remained an ongoing area of focus for the regulator.<\/p>\n

Hume also urged suppliers to come forward if they had concerns about delisting or other potentially unfair treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can contact the commission directly, or through the anonymous reporting tool on our website.\u201d<\/p>\n

-RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any breaches of the code are breaches of the Grocery Industry Competition Act. Commerce Commission head of groceries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5195,1647,138,702,8307,5978,111,139,69,1361,223,8222,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-245484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-be","9":"tag-breaking","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-it","12":"tag-law","13":"tag-might","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-that","18":"tag-the","19":"tag-warned","20":"tag-woolworths"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}