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Speaker 1: Food prices back in the Headache territory. Gen numbers pop

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Speaker 1: two and a half of the month, which is unusually

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Speaker 1: big four point six for the year. Suo Chipman is

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Speaker 1: the chair of the Gross Reaction Group and is with

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Speaker 1: us soue morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: Is there any point in angsting about this? I mean,

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Speaker 1: most of this for your personal inflation, you can work

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Speaker 1: your way around. You don't have to buy it, or

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Speaker 1: am I being unfair?

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Speaker 2: And you are well all of those things. But look,

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Speaker 2: some of it is out of control, you know, out

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Speaker 2: of you know, anyone's control. I mean, the fact that

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Speaker 2: chocolate is up hugely is because you know, there's a

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Speaker 2: shortage of cocoa, and the fact that we're paying more

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Speaker 2: than thirty thirty two cents or something more than we

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Speaker 2: were paying for coffee a year a year ago is

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Speaker 2: there's a big worldwide support shortage of coffee beans and

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Speaker 2: huge demand for it. I suppose some part of the

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Speaker 2: issue is here for New Zealanders because a lot of

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Speaker 2: this is around fresh fruit and vegetables, which at this

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Speaker 2: time of the year you should be at its cheapest.

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Speaker 2: So I suppose part of it will be some of

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Speaker 2: the storm damage leading into the harvest.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I'm saying. So there's nothing there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. I can explain most of the

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Speaker 1: stuff away, and it's it's nothing we can do about it.

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Speaker 1: So you've done chocolate, you've done coffee. The storm damage

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Speaker 1: does fruit and vegetables. Some fruit, vegetables come down, some

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Speaker 1: go up restaurant meals. They're well within the band. Alcohol's

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Speaker 1: well within the band. You know, you take into things

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Speaker 1: like rent and all that sort of stuff. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's actually going backwards. It's just an observational thing. It

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Speaker 1: is what it is, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Look I suspect part you're right. But what I would

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Speaker 2: also say is that you know, New Zealand does have

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Speaker 2: very high grocery prices. And I know you and I

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Speaker 2: disagree on this, but you know that's partly because there

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Speaker 2: is no competition and supermarkets can can do what they

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Speaker 2: like and and in this situation they are doing that

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Speaker 2: because iguably this is the time when fresh fruit and

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Speaker 2: vegetables should be down in price. And we can see

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Speaker 2: that tomatoes are, but pretty much nothing else is. And

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Speaker 2: we've also got very high prices for meat, poultry and fish.

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Speaker 2: Now we're good at all of those things. But we're

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Speaker 2: paying international prices here.

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Speaker 1: But that's good though, I mean it's not real you

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Speaker 1: and I paying them, But it's good that we sell

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Speaker 1: internationally for a high price because that's what we do.

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Speaker 2: As a country indeed. But we also you know, we've

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Speaker 2: also got fact that fuel prices are down, so you

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Speaker 2: can't argue that you know, there's a problem getting this

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Speaker 2: stuff around the country or anything like that. So I

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Speaker 2: would say that, you know, factoring into this is also

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Speaker 2: we pay high prices because there's no competition and groceries,

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Speaker 2: our supermarkets can pretty much take the margins they want

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Speaker 2: to take.

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Speaker 1: Given what you've said, what you've said, and given what

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Speaker 1: Nikola Willis says what she says, and you're roughly on

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Speaker 1: the same page, has anything actually changed? Will we just

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Speaker 1: into a whole new year of complaining more about the

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Speaker 1: same old problem which isn't getting fixed, a changed or anything.

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Speaker 2: Look, I'm hoping not, but you know, Nicola Willis talked

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Speaker 2: the big game last year when she took over as

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Speaker 2: grocery Minister, and that you know, divestment of some stores

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Speaker 2: could be on the table if nothing else wet She

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Speaker 2: asked for report, which was meant to be given to

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Speaker 2: her before Christmas. We haven't seen anything from that. She's

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Speaker 2: made some changes, but all of those sort of behavior

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Speaker 2: type changes, and while they're nice to have, nothing has

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Speaker 2: changed for New Zealand trooppers as we speak. So I'm

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Speaker 2: hoping that twenty twenty six will mean there is some

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Speaker 2: pressure because there is an election, but I'm not holding

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Speaker 2: my breath.

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Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you, Sue Chetwin, who is the

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Speaker 1: chair of the Grocery Action Group. For more from the

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Speaker 1: Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks there'd be

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Speaker 1: from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio