UBS analysts gave a bracing finding from its regular survey of 1000 shoppers last week: more people named Coles over Woolworths as their main supermarket for the first time.

Add in new Woolies CEO Amanda Bardwell’s first sales call, which included a profit downgrade, her predecessor Brad Banducci losing his head on Four Corners, the brand sliding from 7th to 42nd most reputable in Australia, helped by the ACCC, along with Anthony Albanese making supermarkets enemy number one in the cost-of-living crisis, and its shareholders are standing in a sticky mess in aisle five.