Big supermarket owners escape major change

Supermarket competition is "muted", but major interventions are not recommended. (Image: Getty)

Tue, 08 Mar 2022

New Zealand’s supermarket duopoly has escaped all but the lower end of the potential reforms to force greater competition among food and grocery retailers.The first recommendation in the Commerce Commission’s final outcome of its inquiry into the grocery sector, published this morning, was aimed at local government planning rules that restrict the construction of competing supermarkets near to one another.The same recommendation includes a call for an end to restrictive covenants that supermarket owners have used in the past to stop...

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