May 18, 2022 | Katherine Rich Comments
A flurry of activity in recent weeks – some of it public, some not – shows the Government is finally getting around to tidying up New Zealand’s confusing recycling and waste system. But it will need to make sure it treads carefully if it is to take the public with it....
Apr 14, 2022 | Katherine Rich Comments
Things have moved fast since the Commerce Commission announced the recommendations from its market study into the grocery sector. With the ink on the report dry for barely a week, stakeholders were being invited by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment...
Mar 14, 2022 | Katherine Rich Comments
The two supermarket chains will no doubt be pleased by the absence of recommendations for big structural changes to the sector in the Commerce Commission’s final report on the grocery market study. Others, particularly those looking to find a way into the market as a...
Feb 9, 2022 | Katherine Rich Comments
One of the most disappointing aspects of New Zealand’s united COVID response is that, though well-intentioned, we don’t seem to build on lessons from each phase of the pandemic. Each time, we’ve found rules dreamt up by the Ministry of Health will either work...
Nov 29, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
The Commerce Commission Market Study into grocery retailing has been thorough and has exceeded all my expectations in terms of the meticulous nature of the research and information gathering from the perspective of economics and competition law. It has been great to...
Nov 1, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
The recent draft report by the Commerce Commission confirmed New Zealand’s supermarket market structure is a duopoly, that there is weak competition and that the returns are high. While there are few opportunities and competition to own a supermarket, there’s not much...
Oct 15, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
Last December, Foodstuffs North Island made a big splash explaining “why Foodstuffs won’t charge suppliers for shelf space anymore”. It was about “democratic shelving”, so some brands could not “buy the best shelf space, the pole...
Oct 3, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
A Grocery Code of Conduct came closer recently when the Food & Grocery Council appeared before a parliamentary select committee to make an oral submission on our petition. We have long advocated for a framework similar to those in Australia and the UK which...
Oct 1, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
Following the announcement of the latest Level 4 lockdown, the Police tweeted, “Go Home, Stay Home. You’re It”, in reference to a favourite childhood game for many of us. At the time, I thought it was clever and humorous social media, but I didn’t appreciate how well...
Sep 13, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
Anyone doubting the thoroughness with which the Commerce Commission would conduct its market study into competition issues concerning consumers, retailers and suppliers in the grocery sector would have been well and truly silenced by their draft report. At a whopping...
Aug 30, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
There’s been a lot to take in from the Commerce Commission’s draft report on their market study into New Zealand’s grocery sector. There’s no doubt everyone wants lower grocery prices, and that’s what was behind the Government’s instruction to the commission: was...
Aug 19, 2021 | Katherine Rich Comments
The New Zealand economy has been built on the export of food, kicked off in a big way by the first successful shipment of frozen meat on the ‘Dunedin’ to Great Britain from Totara, in Otago, in 1882. Of course, there was exporting before that, with the first trades...
