Countdown supermarkets have frozen the price of over 300 food items until the end of Winter.
The list - which can be viewed in full here - contains many double-ups (blue top and green top milk, for example) and varieties of the same core product (fourteen different packs of sausage are included).
Many of the price frozen products are the supermarket's own brand: Countdown-branded milk will be locked in at $5.69, a kilo of Countdown beef mince will remain at $16.90, a large pack of Countdown chicken breasts will stay at $12.90 per kg (minimum 1.65kg purchase).
Only two raw vegetable products are on the list - 4kg of potatoes ($10) and a pack of mushrooms ($4). However, there are a few tinned veges that make the cut such as tomatoes, beans, and lentils.
The list also includes many ready-to-heat meals like soups or curries.
Gemma Rasmussen, head of research at Consumer NZ, said that the price freeze is still a positive for supermarkets due to the aforementioned abundance of their own products on the list.
“In these instances, the supermarket is both the supplier and the retailer, so they can retain higher profit, and it also means that increases their market power over other suppliers,” she told RNZ.
Hamish Gow from Lincoln University believes the country’s whole supermarket industry needs to change.
“Our food industry is still based around this middle, department-store, traditional supermarket with this large mixed offering - but we haven't seen the differentiation of it in New Zealand like we have elsewhere in the world.”
Last year, Countdown ran a similar price freeze, but came under fire after consumers noticed it was mostly non-essential, more luxury food items that had their price froze, such as herbs and salmon.
