Sue Chetwin: Grocery Action Group Chair on Z Energy expanding its grocery offering to try help with competition

Z Energy's expanding its 'top up shops' in hopes of helping with competition in the grocery sector. 

The gas station chain is expanding its grocery offering as part of a diversification push. 

It will target customers looking for convenience between their large shops – for snacks or staples. 

Grocery Action Group Chair Sue Chetwin told Mike Hosking they'll have nothing fresh or frozen, which is where the competition is. 

She says they'll have bits and bobs, but it's not the answer to very high grocery prices. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So maybe some good news on this ongoing grocery debate.
Z Energy of announced they're looking to expand their roles.
So they've got these top up shops, which they argue
is the sort of the stuff you need between the
big shops, so they're expanding some of those. See Chapman's
the chair of the Grocery Action Group and cheese with
the US soon Morning, Good Morning, between the warehouse and
these sort of offerings. Is this a sign the market's

(00:20):
kind of responding or sort of working or not.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Look, I don't think it's a sign that the market
is working. I mean, really, what we need and what
I think Nikola Willis has realized, is that we need
light for light competition. So we need you know, big
supermarkets like New Worlds and like packing saves or competing.
This is you know, this is sort of I mean, cynically,

(00:46):
you could say, why are they announcing this at this time,
because they are also, of course a market that's under
investigation for sort of duopolistic type behavior. But you know,
it's slightly good news for consumers. I imagine every think
will be reasonably expensive. They won't have anything fresh or frozen,
which is kind of where the big competition is, so yeah,

(01:09):
if you want to top up at it at a
gas station, you might be able to get some bits
and bobs, but you won't be doing your grocery shop there.
And this is not the answer to our problem with
some very high grocery prices.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Do you believe Willis when she yet again says yesterday
after the budget she's back into them, And what magic
is she going to wave our way?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I don't think she's going to wave any magic, but
I think what she's going to do is say, you know,
we can't keep listening to the Duopoli saying you know
that that we do have competition in New Zealand. We
don't you know, they've got sort of eighty ninety percent
of the market between two In Australia they can plain
when the jeopoly's got sixty percent of the market. So

(01:52):
she's going to have to look at ownership quite seriously.
But in the end it may well be that the
supermarket owners still own a food stuff area their shops,
but they know they have a different sort of head office.
There are all sorts of ways of cutting this, and
I think she's seriously looking at how that might happen
for the benefit of consumers.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Let's see what happens to appreciate it, chair of the
Gross Reaction Group to Chetwyn for more from the My
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