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Customer and regulatory update

A group of employees from Woolworths Group smiling and standing together

Cost-of-living pressures are a critical concern for our customers, both in Australia and New Zealand. As Woolworths Group, we recognise the important role we play for our customers, teams and communities in delivering the value, choice and quality they expect for their food and everyday needs. 

This year, Woolworths Group will participate in a number of inquiries including the Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices, various State Parliamentary inquiries, the ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry and the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Review. All relevant public material and submissions will be shared on this page. 

This page is also intended for anyone who wants to understand more about how we operate or find answers to common questions.
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Customer update

 

Listening to our customers, we know that the cost of living is a challenge. Many tell us that they are trying to balance the impact of inflation across many areas of household spending and they are looking to us to provide real value and savings to help manage their budgets.
 

australian average household spend

 

Further information on Australian household budgets can be found in Boston Consulting Group's, Consumer Spending Report: Snapshot into the Australian Market (May 2024).  

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Inflation trends


We know that our customers expect us to help them with that balance and we have been working hard to help customers spend less. Food inflation has moderated over the last 12 months and favourable conditions in Fruit & Vegetables and Meat have led to price reductions in these categories. We are constantly evolving our digital and online tools to help customers find the best value whether they shop in-store or online. Click here to see more ways we are helping customers spend less.

inflation trends
average food price change
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Where your dollar goes


We are committed to balancing the needs of all stakeholders. We want to provide the best experiences for our customers and team, make a meaningful contribution to our communities, support our trade partners and deliver long-term sustainable growth for our shareholders.

how group revenue is distributed
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How we are supporting the different inquiries and reviews

This year, Woolworths Group will participate in a number of inquiries and reviews that are relevant to our sector. These include the Senate Select Committee on Supermarket Prices, the ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry and the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Review.

We welcome the opportunity to explain how we are working to balance the needs of our customers, our team, our suppliers and our shareholders. 

Please find our public statements and submissions below.

 

Woolworths Group was founded in 1924 and has a history of serving Australian and New Zealand communities for almost 100 years. We are listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and around 70% of our shares are owned by Australians directly or via their superannuation fund. We are Australia’s largest private employer, with more than 200,000 team members across more than 1,450 Woolworths Supermarkets, Metro Food Stores, Woolworths New Zealand and BIG W discount department stores. We are a major regional employer, with 47,500 regional workers in F23, paying $1.6 billion in wages to regional team members each year. We operate one of the largest supply chain and logistics networks in Australia which help to support food security for some of Australia’s most remote and disaster-prone regions.

We serve on average around 25 million customers a week across our Group and we recognise we need to work hard every day for our customers to deliver better experiences as Woolworths stores typically have five competitor stores located within a short distance. We also know that one in five customers will shop at another grocery retailer an hour before or after shopping at Woolworths. In Australia, we offer the same retail prices on our website and mobile app as we do in-store. Customers can (and do) find and compare the lowest prices before and/or as they shop. We have also developed online propositions and digital tools to help customers find more value and more easily manage their weekly budgets.

Australia’s period of relatively stable grocery pricing ended around the start of 2022 post COVID. There have been markedly different inflationary drivers across different product categories in the supermarket over the past two years. Grocery inflation has been driven by cost increases from our supplier partners and cyclical impacts in fresh food markets. Importantly, food inflation in Australia – and at Woolworths – has been moderating since January 2023, led by deflation in fruit and vegetables and red meat in particular. We are also seeing long-life inflation start to moderate. (More information by category can be found on pages 7-13 in our Senate submission).

Throughout this recent inflationary period, we have taken, and continue to take, steps to provide affordable grocery products for all Australians. These include:

  • Focusing our price investments on vegetables and protein - including our commitment to price Odd Bunch at 20% below comparable fruit and vegetable products;

  • Holding own brand products at low prices across pantry essentials, providing average savings of around 30% to branded products;

  • Providing over 6,000 meaningful weekly specials and ~4,000 products on our everyday low price programs ‘Low Prices’ and seasonal ‘Prices Dropped’;

  • Introducing a 'best unit price' filter on our website and app, so customers can easily find the best value in a category; and

  • Donating more than 34 million meals to our food rescue partners in F23