Sunblock burns hole in wallet

It’s considered a necessity in New Zealand but it’s worth its weight in whisky, vodka or champagne.

Debate about the cost of sunscreen in New Zealand, prompting even talk of government subsidies, has not addressed why Kiwis are paying so much for the stuff, especially when it’s so cheap in Australia.

And forget trying to shop around. If you want to buy 400ml of sunscreen this week from either of New Zealand’s two main supermarkets, Countdown and New World, you’ll be paying almost an identical price regardless of brand, type or supermarket.

Countdown had no variation in price at all across six brands of sunscreen advertised as available online. Whether it’s Banana Boat for Kids, Nivea Sun’s Protect and Moisture or the Cancer Society’s regular lotion, all bottles are advertised as $18 excluding in-store deals and temporary discounts.

Over at competitor New World, the three available 400ml bottles online at stores in Auckland show little variation, advertised between $17 and $18.80.

It is not clear which element of the manufacturing process is driving up the price.

The Sunday Star-Times looked at the cost of purchasing the active ingredients common in most of the mainstream sunscreens. For a 200ml bottle, active ingredients such as homosalate, octyl salicylate, avobenzone and octocrylene amounted to anywhere between 18 cents and 89 cents each per bottle.

Typically, each bottle has 3-4 active ingredients which on average would come in at around $1.80 to $2.40 a 200ml bottle.

At both supermarkets just four brands dominate the market, producing 37 out of the 40 brands on the shelves.

Nivea Sun (owned by German company Beiersdorf AG), Neutrogena (owned by American Johnson & Johnson), Banana Boat (owned by American Edgewell Personal Care) and the Cancer Society of New Zealand have almost identical prices across their range.

Cancer Society and Nivea dominate the sunscreen market in New Zealand, sharing about two-thirds of the total market share between them.

Cancer Society chief executive Mike Kernaghan would not reveal its profit margins.

The society’s commercial arm, Daffodil Enterprises, buys the sunscreen from Australian Pharmaceutical Industries, turn contracts the

out Melbourne.

Readers sound off sunscreen prices STUFF.CO.NZ

which work to Baxter

Kernaghan pointed to stricter regulatory requirements on sunscreen in Australia. Sunscreen manufacture in New Zealand is unregulated and ‘‘anyone can put anything in a bottle and call it sunscreen.’’

Meanwhile Baxter did not respond to comment.

A Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman also said she could not comment on the most expensive input in the sunblock manufacturing process.

Kernaghan said the price of sunscreen had to be viewed in comparison to other supermarket items. in Laboratories in Laboratories request for