We place immense value on building and maintaining strong partnerships with the growers, manufacturers and importers who provide the high quality goods that stock our shelves.
During the year we continued to work closely with our supplier partners to ensure our customers benefited from products that meet their many needs, quality, choice and value, while at the same time recognising the continuing pressure on costs being experienced within our supplier community.
We regularly and openly engage with suppliers on what we’re doing, as we collectively navigate the changes in our industry. Our Supplier Pulse survey results have shown continuous improvement in suppliers’ sentiment towards the co-op and in their understanding of our strategy and the benefits of working closely with us.
In September 2023, the new Grocery Supply Code came into effect, providing clarity around the rules of engagement between retailers and suppliers, with the aim of driving better outcomes for customers.
Under the Code, regulated grocery retailers are required to act in good faith when dealing with suppliers, and to offer all suppliers a Code-compliant Grocery Supply Agreement.
We committed considerable effort and resources to understanding and implementing the requirements of the new Code, including comprehensive training for our relevant support centre and store teams, and issued Grocery Supply Agreements to 1,600-plus suppliers within six months.
We remain actively engaged with the Grocery Commissioner and the Grocery Regulation team at the Commerce Commission, while continuing to work with our teams and stores to track compliance and offer ongoing support and training.
We’ve continued to listen to and have quality conversations with our supplier partners, allowing us to provide guidance, to build plans together, to identify any challenges early or to provide support to ultimately help them to succeed.
A regular highlight is our Foodies Connect conference, hosting supplier partners at our Support Centre in Auckland twice a year. In March 2024, we hosted 500 suppliers in person, plus another 400 online, covering topics including customer insights, our brand priorities, eCommerce and the Grocery Supply Code.
Each month we engage with suppliers through our online supplier Q&A forums, where we share operational updates and provide the opportunity to ask questions. We follow this with a monthly supplier e-newsletter covering more detailed updates.
In 2023 we kicked off our Emerging Supplier Forums, which have been highly successful. Designed to break down what’s important for suppliers to know when engaging with our co-op, and help small and emerging suppliers achieve supermarket success, the series of nationwide forums is a partnership with regional business development agencies and industry specialists.
In FY24, we held 16 of these forums for more than 250 potential suppliers at various stages of their journeys. We actively engaged with 46 of them, with 14 successfully getting their products onto New World shelves.
In conjunction with Foodstuffs South Island, we also held our inaugural Foodstuffs Emerging Supplier competition, ‘Emerge’. This provides a fantastic opportunity for talented small suppliers to gain access to industry leaders and Foodstuffs mentors, plus take their new innovations on a fast-tracked journey to New World shelves.
In the year ahead, we have our biennial Supplier Expo in March 2025, connecting suppliers with reps from our stores at what is the biggest food industry event of its kind in New Zealand.
We also have a longstanding supplier working group, which meets monthly and is tasked with improving how we work with our suppliers, based on their feedback.
Feedback from the supplier community has included appreciation of our transparency and willingness to engage through our various forums, to a level not provided by other retailers in New Zealand.
CASE STUDY: TOOTHPASTE INNOVATION WOWS JUDGES AT EMERGING SUPPLIER COMPETITION |
Adam McConnochie from Solid, winner of the Start Up category |
| Porirua-based oral health company Solid took out the Start Up category of the Emerge in October 2023, with their toothpaste innovations. Solid offers a range of oral health products, but their toothpaste-in-a-jar and toothpaste tablets convinced our judges they had a product that would appeal to customers. Founders Laura and Adam McConnochie want to help tackle the problem of toothpaste tubes ending up in landfills, with 16 million discarded in New Zealand every year. Solid’s jars are returnable for reuse, encouraging customers to recycle. Solid’s toothpaste-in-a-jar and toothpaste tablets are now available in 59 New World stores around the country, with more coming on board regularly. The company also now has plans to expand into the Australian market. |
The Grocery Industry Competition Act was passed into law in June 2023 “to promote competition and efficiency in the grocery industry for the long-term benefit of consumers in New Zealand”.
This Act places a number of requirements on regulated grocery retailers, including Foodstuffs North Island, Foodstuffs South Island and Woolworths NZ.
Regulations were also passed under the Fair Trading Act in relation to unit pricing requirements.
Here are some of the key changes in grocery market regulation:
Unit pricing lets customers see how much an item costs by weight, volume or number, so they can make accurate price comparisons.
The Consumer Information Standards (Unit Pricing for Grocery Products) Regulations 2023 came into effect on 31 August 2023, requiring our qualifying physical stores to comply by 31 August 2024 and online stores by 31 August 2025.
We’ve done a lot of work to comply with many of the requirements ahead of the statutory deadlines so, where possible, products in our stores and websites display unit prices where they are currently available.
Our teams are now working on technical solutions to apply unit pricing to complex promotions and electronic shelf labels in some locations.
We opened our wholesale supply offering to qualifying wholesale customers in March 2023, allowing retailers who are not members of our co-op to apply to purchase goods from our distribution centres.
We’re committed to being an active participant and promoting a competitive wholesale grocery market.
As at 31 March 2024:
Other changes we’ve made since the Commerce Commission’s market study into the retail grocery sector include:
In FY24, Foodstuffs gave input to a range of legislative issues including the new National-led coalition Government’s proposed fast-track consenting regime, as well as a range of policy reforms such as standards around imported and organic products and cosmetics; vaping regulations; business payment regulations; the Petition Committee’s inquiry into mobility parking; amendments to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, and Ministry of Primary Industry’s consultation on proposals to expand NZ Food Safety’s regulatory services and cost recovery.
We look forward to providing input into the new Government’s agenda, including a new fit-for-purpose Holidays Act, immigration settings and review of health and safety legislation.
