We have one supermarket in our little town, an IGA. It is very expensive. They do not display the unit price on food items. Fruit and veg, yes, but other items no. Are they legally required to?
– Christine, New South Wales
Kat says: Unit pricing is a great way for consumers to figure out if they’re getting a good deal on groceries – which is increasingly important in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, and even more so when supermarkets are under review for price gouging. Unit pricing is a system in which grocery retailers display how much a product costs based on the measurement in which it is sold, like weight, volume, length or area.
For instance, if you’re buying a bag of rice with unit pricing, the price tag displayed on the shelf would show the cost of the total bag, along with the cost of the rice a kilo. This allows you to compare bags of rice on a per kilo basis to see which is the cheapest. Unit pricing is designed to increase transparency in grocery pricing, for instance, to help customers see where buying a 1kg bag of rice might be more cost-effective than buying a 750g bag of rice, even if the total price tag on the latter is smaller.
It’s a good pick-up noticing that your local supermarket doesn’t display unit pricing. In regard to whether they are legally required to, the answer in your case is no. But that does not mean there is nothing to be done about it.
The Retail Grocery Industry (Unit Pricing) Code of Conduct sets out which grocery retailers must display unit pricing and how they must do so. Under the code, there are three categories of grocery retailers to which unit pricing regulations apply.
The first is store-based grocery retailers, of which your local IGA is certainly one. The grocery must also sell the “minimum range” of food-based items, which includes bread, breakfast cereal, butter, eggs, flour, fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh milk, meat, rice, sugar and other packaged food. If the IGA is the only grocery store in your town, I think it’s safe for me to assume they sell these essential grocery items.
The catch is that the floor space dedicated to grocery items must be greater than 1,000 sq m. We contacted IGA and, as your store is only 400 sq m, it is not automatically covered by the code.
The second type of grocery retailer to which the code applies is one which sells the minimum range of groceries online – which I don’t think applies to IGA stores in general.
The third type are grocery retailers that sell the minimum range of groceries and voluntarily choose to display unit pricing. Those that opt in voluntarily must comply with the code as if they were required to (although they can also choose to opt out at any time).
Because your IGA is smaller than the prescribed size, I’d suggest approaching management or the owner with a view to advocating for their participation in the unit pricing scheme on a voluntary basis. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has a handy guide for businesses that are both obliged to, and voluntarily choose to display unit pricing, which you could refer to. You can ask to speak to a manager (or the owner, if they’re local) or otherwise write them a letter.
If your local community is easy to mobilise, it might even be worth seeking broader support or starting a petition. It can be influential to use social licence as a way to shift business practices and, if you’re successful, the benefits will accrue for the whole community.
If your store did meet the size requirement to display unit pricing, the next step would still have been to approach the store and let them know that unit pricing should be displayed. Though with larger stores, if these efforts are unsuccessful, you can also let the ACCC know.
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