For six months, Woolworths and Coles had gone back and forth with officials at the competition regulator, trying to explain what products they discount – and by how much. It did not prepare them for the bomb that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission lobbed in the direction of the supermarket giants on September 23, when the watchdog accused them of misleading shoppers by faking discounts.

That was Monday, the first day of two weeks from hell for Woolworths chief executive Amanda Bardwell and her rival at Coles, Leah Weckert – a period that wiped billions of dollars from the companies valuations and cemented a view in the public that they were cynically profiteering from skyrocketing grocery bills at the expense of shoppers already doing it tough.