What the ACCC does

  • We accept reports where people consider a business is doing something they shouldn’t do. We use those reports to inform our education, compliance and enforcement work.
  • We can investigate where we think that a very large supermarket retailer may have breached the food and grocery code for excessive pricing. In appropriate cases, we may take some form of compliance or enforcement action.

What the ACCC can't do

  • We don’t resolve individual complaints about excessive pricing.
  • We don’t provide legal advice.

On this page

About the excessive pricing prohibition

The supermarkets excessive pricing prohibition comes into effect on 1 July 2026.

The prohibition means that a very large retailer must not engage in excessive pricing of grocery products to consumers. It aims to promote competition in grocery product markets and protect consumers from excessive pricing.

The prohibition is contained within the Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes—Food and Grocery) Regulations 2024.

The prohibition applies to very large retailers

A retailer is a very large retailer for a financial year when:

  • it has a supermarket business in Australia, and
  • the total revenue earned in Australia by that retailer, and each related body corporate of that retailer, from that business exceeded $30 billion for the previous financial year.

Very large retailers currently covered by the prohibition include Coles and Woolworths.

What excessive pricing means

A very large retailer only ‘engages in excessive pricing’ of grocery products if, in all the circumstances, the pricing is ‘significantly excessive’ when compared to the costs to the supermarket to supply the product plus a reasonable margin.

The supermarket’s costs to supply a product includes both direct and indirect costs and can be made up of a lot of different things such as:

  • the cost of buying or producing the product
  • costs in preparing the product for sale, for example transporting the product to the supermarket
  • operating costs for the supermarket, for example staff wages and store rent
  • research and development costs, for example researching new product lines
  • investment costs, for example investing in new equipment or technologies.

The margin is the profit earned by a retailer for the sale of a product after subtracting all the relevant direct and indirect costs from the retail price it receives for the product.
 

Very large retailers must notify us of their status

A corporation must notify the ACCC when it becomes, or stops being, a very large retailer.

Specifically, a corporation must notify us when:

  • the corporation is a very large retailer for a financial year but was not for the previous financial year
  • the corporation was not a very large retailer for a financial year but was for the previous financial year.

The corporation must notify us within 5 business days after the latest day that the corporation is required to lodge a report for the previous financial year under section 319 of the Corporations Act 2001.

When a corporation notifies us, they should tell us:

  • the date the corporation became or stopped being a very large retailer
  • the contact details of the relevant representatives from the corporation that we should engage with about their very large retailer status.
     

Monitoring and enforcing the prohibition

Monitoring compliance

We proactively monitor compliance to assess if further investigation is warranted. 

As many different grocery products are sold in supermarkets, we will focus on products where excessive pricing is most likely to cause more harm to consumers.

Information gathering powers

Supermarkets must keep certain pricing information under the food and grocery code. We may request this information.

We may also ask for detailed information, documents and evidence where our compliance checks or other information provided to us raise concerns that there may have been a breach of the code.

Enforcement

We have a range of options available to enforce the prohibition, including court-based outcomes, infringement notices, penalties, and court enforceable undertakings.

View the excessive pricing prohibition penalties.

Public reporting

We will report on our monitoring and enforcement activities in relation to the excessive pricing prohibition.

Record keeping requirements for pricing information

Supermarkets must keep certain pricing information on grocery products for at least 3 years. This includes information on:

  • the retail price, sales volume and costs of purchasing grocery products
  • the operating cost of carrying on the supermarket business in Australia
  • any payments or financial benefits from the supplier to the retailer in exchange for services in connection with the retail sale of grocery products
  • any payments or financial benefit from the supplier to the retailer in connection with the retail sale of grocery products.

Next steps if you’re concerned about potential excessive pricing

Report a concern to the ACCC

If you are concerned that a very large retailer (Coles or Woolworths) may have excessively priced a grocery product or a group of products, you can report your concern to the ACCC. We may use these reports to help identify grocery products that warrant further investigation.

Make a report to the ACCC

Anonymous reporting

The ACCC has special arrangements in place for people who want to anonymously report a potential breach of the Food and Grocery Code to the ACCC, including for the excessive pricing prohibition.

The ACCC uses a third-party platform that protects your identity. This lets you stay completely anonymous when giving the ACCC a tipoff or having ongoing contact with the ACCC.

Make an anonymous report to the ACCC

See also

Setting prices