New year, new financial pressures to worry about. If you cast your minds back to mid-2022, you may recall that supermarket giants Coles and Woolies introduced price freezes on certain items to help reduce the incredible strain grocery costs were putting on people’s wallets.
Both these price freeze campaigns were set to end in late 2022/early 2023, but the supermarket brands have since confirmed they will continue with savings initiatives to help cushion the financial blow for Aussies.
As our pals at Pedestrian have reported, recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that in the 12 months leading up to September 2022, grocery prices jumped up considerably. Fruit and vegetable prices rose 16.2 per cent, dairy product prices increased 12.1 per cent and bread and cereal products spiked by 10 per cent.
You can take a peek at the full table of price shifts below.
The long and short of it is that the change in cost for your average grocery shop in Australia has changed substantially, and with the supermarket price freezes set to expire, there’s every chance that will continue.
Supermarket price freezes in 2023
In somewhat encouraging news, a spokesperson for Woolies shared with the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) that the company intends to maintain lower prices for certain items, despite the end of its original grocery price freeze.
“We know cost-of-living pressures are being felt by Australian families, and throughout 2023 we will continue to work hard to help them save each time they shop with us,” a spokesperson told the outlet.
“We will continue to review each cost increase request from our suppliers on a case-by-case basis, working together to sensitively manage market-wide inflationary pressures.”
It’s certainly not a cemented promise of reasonable prices going forward, and no, it will not be freezing grocery prices again, but here’s hoping customers get some kind of savings still.
Moving across to Coles, the supermarket chain has confirmed it will continue to run its Dropped & Locked price freeze campaign until beyond the original close date of January 31. A spokesperson for Coles shared the following statement with 9News:
“DROPPED&LOCKED will continue beyond 31 January when the first phase of the promotion was scheduled to end. Further details will be provided soon,” they said.
“We will also continue to focus on value through weekly specials, Down Down and Everyday Low Prices which offer key staples at trusted pricing for the longer term, and through other offers such as Flybuys points.”
One of the biggest recommendations going around at the time of 2022’s grocery price hike was to invest in seasonal produce where possible. It’s certainly not going to solve all the financial problems hitting our bank accounts right now, but it is a start. If you’d like a complete guide to seasonal produce in Australia, we’ve pulled one together for you here.
Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about the value of shopping around for your groceries and comparing prices, check out this write-up we shared on that back in 2022.
Best of luck out there, pals. We’ll keep you posted on any updates that come our way.
This article has been updated since its original publish date.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.