The Queensland Consumers Association (QCA) has welcomed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recognition of the need to greatly improve the national grocery unit pricing system in the final report of its supermarket inquiry released today.
Unit pricing, (the price per unit of measure – for example $1.41 per 100g for a 765g packet of breakfast cereal costing $10.80) can greatly help consumers to compare prices and so save substantial amounts of money or get much more for the same amount. However, it can do so only if the system is very consumer friendly which, as the ACCC report confirms, currently it is not.
For example, the ACCC report notes that there is great scope and need to improve the legibility and prominence of the provision of unit pricing by grocery retailers instore and online, as well as to have greater consistency in the units of measure used to indicate unit prices within and between retailers.
For many years QCA has advocated for improvements to the grocery unit pricing system and QCA spokesperson Ian Jarratt says the ACCC’s strong support for this is a real breakthough.
However, in October 2024, the Australian Government announced that it will undertake consultation with a view to strengthening the Unit Pricing Code, including through the introduction of penalties. Therefore, now that the ACCC has completed its report, the government should start the consultation process as soon as possible; the Australian government has indicated in-principle support for the ACCC recommendation but has not yet announced when or how the unit pricing consultation will be undertaken. Furthermore, all political parties should, before the forthcoming election, indicate their support for actions to improve the unit pricing system.
QCA also wants any further consultations on how to improve the unit pricing system to, as was done for the recent review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct, be undertaken by an independent person or persons rather than by a government department.
Above is a media release (21/03/2025) from the Queensland Consumers Association, a valued member of Consumers’ Federation of Australia.