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John Kehoe

Where your spend at Coles and Woolworths is really going

Supermarkets are not profit gouging: less than $3 of every $100 spent goes to profits. Look at the market power of brewers and big tech instead.

John KehoeEconomics editor

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If there was a business sector that people wanted to make legitimate complaints about for so-called “price gouging”, supermarkets would not be high on the priority list based on any rational analysis.

Other oligopolies reaping huge profits, such as beer brewers and digital platforms, warrant far more scrutiny than the huge amount of political, regulatory and company resources being directed to supermarket competition.

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John Kehoe is economics editor at Parliament House, Canberra. He writes on economics, politics and business. John was Washington correspondent covering Donald Trump’s election. He joined the Financial Review in 2008 from Treasury. Connect with John on Twitter. Email John at jkehoe@afr.com

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    Original URL: https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/where-your-spend-at-coles-and-woolworths-is-really-going-20240319-p5fdgp