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Speaker 1: And the Commerce Commission has rejected food Stuff's proposal to

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Speaker 1: merge their North and South Island entities. The report sites

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Speaker 1: concerns around market competition and the effect on suppliers, reducing

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Speaker 1: major buyers in New Zealand from three to two. Chris Quinn,

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Speaker 1: there's food Stuffs North Island CEO and is with a

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Speaker 1: skelder jack as it stands, Chris, do the North and

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Speaker 1: South Island food Stuff's arms compete not at all.

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Speaker 2: So they are, you know, we are entirely separate from

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Speaker 2: a geographic point of view. You know, it's one of

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Speaker 2: the wonders of New Zealand that the North and South

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Speaker 2: Island geography is quite separated, and we have you know,

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Speaker 2: the merger proposal was essentially going to see the same

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Speaker 2: stores and the same communities owned by the same families

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Speaker 2: and bringing together the support operation for the retail stores,

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Speaker 2: which is out of sight of customers and part of

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Speaker 2: retail competition, bring it together in a more efficient way

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Speaker 2: so that we could keep delivering value on innovation for

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Speaker 2: New Zealanders. That's the disappointing thing about today's outcome.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think of the ComCom decision? Why

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Speaker 1: do they make it.

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Speaker 2: Look, we're not clear on the why yet. We've got

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Speaker 2: a press release we've seen today. We have been told

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Speaker 2: that we will get the full explanation of the decision

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Speaker 2: by the twenty third of October. You know, we'll do

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Speaker 2: the right thing, which is to wait for that and

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Speaker 2: read it through and properly understand it and understand the

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Speaker 2: points that are in there. But at this point in time,

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Speaker 2: we don't understand why we have failed to be successful,

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Speaker 2: which with what is a pretty known legal test for

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Speaker 2: these events.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean the question is whether or

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Speaker 1: not going from what the ComCom says as effectively three buyers,

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Speaker 1: but having those two separate entities become one will mean

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Speaker 1: that from a suppliers perspective, you as the buyer have

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Speaker 1: more power or less power than before. And in the

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Speaker 1: eyes of some going from two to one will mean

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Speaker 1: you have more more power when negotiating with supplies.

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Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Look, I think the acquisition market argument that

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Speaker 2: it was mentioned in the press release, and we'll wait

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Speaker 2: for the detail, but essentially what we have today is

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Speaker 2: an organization that buys in the North Island and another

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Speaker 2: organization that buys on the south on it in terms

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Speaker 2: of the large grocery retailers that sits alongside our competition

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Speaker 2: war Works Australia, and what we would have after a

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Speaker 2: merger is two players in the North and the South

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Speaker 2: Island each. So our view was it doesn't change the

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Speaker 2: number of channels available to supplies. For one hundred and

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Speaker 2: two years, we've been really proud to work alongside a

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Speaker 2: hip Hop and New Zealand Supplies and bring them to

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Speaker 2: life through one store at a time, or ten stores,

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Speaker 2: or one region or one of our through retail manners.

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Speaker 2: So all of those things we think we're part of

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Speaker 2: the reason why we saw benefit in this for our

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Speaker 2: supplier partners.

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Speaker 1: Is this going to the High Court?

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Speaker 2: Well, we're going to wait until we get the determination

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Speaker 2: document from the Commission. We'll properly read it and consider

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Speaker 2: it open. But based on what we know today, we

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Speaker 2: can't see why we've failed the legal test here and

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Speaker 2: if there isn't anything new from the process we've been

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Speaker 2: in for the last ten months, we would likely appeal this.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Chris, appreciate it. That is Chris Quinn.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Dupless Allen Drive listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio