The Grocery Action Group has given a thumbs up to the appointment of the Hon Steven Joyce to the board of Foodstuffs North Island, owners of the dominant supermarkets Pak’nSave, New World and Four Square.
“Mr Joyce has all the right experience to get far better competition working to help lower prices for Kiwi consumers,” said Sue Chetwin, chair of the Grocery Action Group (GAG).
“Apart from his business credentials and coming from a grocery family himself, as a government minister, he also oversaw the split up of Telecom to ensure market competition in our communications future.”
Chetwin added that Joyce has been on record suggesting New Zealand supermarkets could front-foot their own divestment to restore three separate supermarket chains and distribution centres.
She mentioned that he had written in April this year that ‘Foodstuffs, the owners of New World and Pak’nSave, could voluntarily agree to split their brands into two co-operatives, perhaps Pak’nSave in one and New World and Four Square in the other, in return for letting each separate company merge its North and South Island operations, as they have been seeking.
‘At a stroke, there would be three national operations at scale and the ownership of each individual supermarket would remain intact.’
Along with every Kiwi household, Chetwin looked forward with keen anticipation to learning how Joyce's appointment and influence would help move the supermarket duopoly to a more sustainable future.
