Pain for grocery buyers

HEFTY price rises in North Queensland supermarkets are forcing shoppers like Joanne Douglas to reconsider what they were putting into their shopping trolleys or whether to ditch supermarkets altogether.

Through his Townsville Grocery Price Watch initiative, JCU Adjunct Professor Colin Dwyer has calculated that a basket of 39 goods increased in price by 4.2 per cent at Coles, and 3.5 per cent at Woolworths, over the past six weeks.

A Heatley-based retiree, Ms Douglas said she was going without certain foods, changing the way she prepared food, and was shopping elsewhere to help stretch her money further during the present cost of living crisis.

While she understood that there were factors out of the supermarkets’ control, like the impacts flooding and the pandemic on supply chains, Ms Douglas was prompted to contact Norco milk to check whether they were getting any additional money after a supermarket lifted the milk price from $3.65 to $4.10.

“I go to supermarkets and look at stuff and I think ‘I would like to buy that’ and then I think ‘ do I really need it?’ and so I walk out without buying anything,” Ms Douglas said.

“(This includes) all the berries, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, all that basic stuff. I pay for it, but I don’t buy as much as I used to.”

“Getting a bit more savvy” about how she shopped, the retiree was more inclined to visit local wholesalers like Lamberts Fresh Produce or buying direct from farmers at the local markets.

“I’m making soups, and I’m adjusting how I cook,” she said.

“I doubt (things) will get better, particularly while we have global warming and all these floods and stuff going on.”

After his latest survey of 39 grocery items on July 11, Prof Dwyer was able to quantify a monthly price increase for the Townsville basket, price changes for individual items, and the annual change in prices for some items.

“Iceberg lettuce has almost tripled in the past year and (fresh) broccoli has almost doubled,” Professor Dwyer said.

“In the past month fresh carrots have increased 40 per cent, frozen corn over 11 per cent and frozen broccoli around 4 per cent.

“1 litre of milk at two national brand stores has risen 25c or 18.5 per cent in the past month.”

He noted that some items had experienced price declines, like blueberries, which were down 16.7 per cent.

“Traditionally prices rise easily but without better competition (like the presence of Aldi supermarkets) and other factors, they are slower to fall,” he said.

In his June survey, the professor determined that frozen, tinned and packet products were “way cheaper” than fresh products.

Professor Dwyer said there was a need for regions to be included in official inflation data to accurately provide cost of living information to regional people.