More Aussies to cook and entertain at home this Christmas as cost of living bites

More Australians than ever say they are planning to cook and entertain at home this Christmas due to cost of living pressures, with Coles unveiling its Xmas grocery offer to capture those home cooking dollars.

Coles CEO Leah Weckert and Coles Ambassador Curtis Stone at the Coles Christmas 2024 launch. Photo: Hanna Lassen.

Coles boss Leah Weckert, who along with Woolworths, is facing court claims the supermarket promoted “misleading” discounts on supermarket products, is preparing for a bumper Christmas trade, led by more Australians opting to cook and entertain at home to save money.

Unveiling its Christmas food and grocery offer on Thursday, which will feature such goodies as Reindeer bao buns, rib rack crackling pork roast and luxury Sicilian lemon curd sponge pudding, Ms Weckert said a recent survey of 8,000 Coles shoppers found of those celebrating Christmas, 23 per cent are planning to cook and entertain even more at home this year compared to previous years.

And in her first public comments since the misleading discounting claims were made by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission as part of its legal action, Ms Weckert said Coles was focused on all of its specials and discounts, such as its Down Down campaign, properly engineered and delivered to “provide genuine savings for customers”.

Coles has said it would defend the ACCC action against it and on Thursday Ms Weckert said while she was limited to what she could say because it was before the courts, Coles took its pricing and discounting deals seriously.

“As these are legal proceedings now I’m somewhat limited to what I am able to say, but what I would say is that all of our specials, discounts, the programs we have like Down Down, they all aim to provide genuine savings for customers,” she told The Australian.

“And we believe that really goes to the heart of customer trust, and it’s something we do take very seriously at Coles, especially at the moment when we know that cost of living challenges are really facing a lot of households, Australians are doing it tough, and so we are working as hard as we can to provide value to customers in lots of different ways across the store.”

Last month, the ACCC launched court action against Coles and Woolworths, claiming both had engaged in misleading discounting of a range of popular supermarket products that the regulator claims was a breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

The supermarket giants stand accused of “misleading consumers through discount pricing claims” on the products and that in fact the discounts were not real but fake or “illusory”.

Coles boss Leah Weckert has defended the retailer’s discounting and pricing strategy in the face of ACCC allegations and legal action.

Meanwhile, as more people looked to create restaurant-quality meals at home for Christmas and summer, the Coles and Liquorland Christmas line-up had more than 400 own-brand products and exclusive speciality drinks to deliver everything customers needed to celebrate the season from family gatherings to summer entertaining.

And the proportion of people looking to home-cooked Christmas meals rather than spending on restaurants was up on last year, fuelled in part by the cost of living crisis.

“All indications would say that we saw a shift to ‘at home’ celebrations last year, and we are seeing it even more of a shift this year, and we’ve definitely seen through the middle of this calendar year a lot of our customers telling us that they’re eating out significantly less, and we are not expecting much of that to change as we come into Christmas,” Ms Weckert told this masthead on Thursday.

“We understand that this year has been challenging for many Aussie families, and we want to make sure our festive range is not only truly delicious, but also easy to prepare and affordable, so our customers can focus on what matters most – creating special moments with family and friends.

“I think it’s big barbecues in the backyard, Christmas lunch around the family dining table is how it’s going to look this year so we are really focused on a range of products, and we’ve got 400 products that we’re bringing to market for the Christmas and festive range this year.”

Ms Weckert said Coles was in particular focused on products that are easy to prepare.

“So when you have to do these big celebrations at home, and you’ve got lots of people coming around, it’s not a big stress to get the meal on the table. We’re also really focused on ‘delicious’ so that you can be a hero when you make Christmas lunch. And then also, we’re really focused on all the different price points that customers might want to buy at, so we can make Christmas as affordable as possible this year.”

These more premium food products will be sold under its luxury private label branding ‘Coles Finest’ with the growth in the Coles own brand groceries running at about twice the pace of branded supermarket items. The Coles Finest range was growing at more than 20 per cent.

The premium range of Christmas food and drink will include items such as Coles Finest Christmas fruit mince pie flavoured milk chocolate block filled with candied orange and festive spices, a fruity and fresh Bijou Terre de Providence pinot noir from France and an indulgent Luxury Sicilian lemon curd sponge pudding with zesty lemon sauce, topped with a sprinkle of freeze-dried raspberries.

“I think we do expect that they (Coles Finest) will go well, but we have been very conscious that we need to have a fantastic range of products at your entry tier and your mid-tier products as well,” Ms Weckert added.