Review of the Grocery Supply Code
As part of its grocery responsibilities the Commission is required to review the operation and effectiveness of the Grocery Supply Code, with the first review due by 28 September 2025.
The Grocery Supply Code sets out rules for the conduct of regulated grocery retailers (RGRs) Foodstuffs North Island, Foodstuffs South Island and Woolworths New Zealand when dealing with grocery suppliers.
The Grocery Supply Code was developed to address the imbalance in bargaining power between RGRs and their suppliers. Its purpose is to promote competition and efficiency in the grocery industry by:
- promoting fair conduct, and prohibiting unfair conduct
- promoting transparency and certainty about the terms of agreements
- contributing to a trading environment that supports competition, confident participants and a diverse range of suppliers in the grocery industry.
The Grocery Industry Competition Act 2023 requires the Commission to complete its first review of the operation and effectiveness of the Code by 28 September 2025.
We want to hear from you
We initiated this review by releasing a Request for Views Paper to help determine the scope, focus, and overall approach we adopt in reviewing the Code. The Request for Views paper, and the submissions and cross-submissions we received in response can be found in the Documents section below.
On 5 June 2025, we published the Draft Report which summarises the review’s findings regarding the operation and effectiveness of the Code and our preliminary opinion that the Code should be amended to enable it to better meet its purpose under the Grocery Industry Competition Act 2023. The Draft Report also introduces a new draft Code and sets out our draft decisions and reasons for the proposed changes. We welcome your feedback on these proposed changes and reasons.
The Code Review Draft Report Decisions and Reasons and submissions received can be found in the ‘Documents’ section at the bottom of this page.
We invite interested parties to cross-submit views and comments on submissions received on the Draft Report by 5pm, Monday 11 August 2025.
Cross-submissions can be emailed to grocery.regulation@comcom.govt.nz with "Grocery Supply Code Review Draft Report” in the subject line.
We intend to publish all cross-submissions on our website, unless you indicate to us that your cross-submission, or parts of it, are confidential. When providing a cross-submission that is not labelled as confidential, please confirm in the cover email that you are happy for that submission to be published on our website. If it is necessary to include confidential material in a cross-submission, the information should be clearly marked, and both confidential and public versions of the cross-submission should be provided and clearly labelled.
We intend to publish all submissions on our website, unless you indicate to us that your submission, or parts of it, are confidential. When providing a submission that is not labelled as confidential, please confirm in the cover email that you are happy for that submission to be published on our website. If it is necessary to include confidential material in a submission, the information should be clearly marked, and both confidential and public versions of the submission should be provided and clearly labelled.
While the scope of the submissions are limited to findings raised in the Draft Report, if you would like to raise any other or emerging issues regarding the Grocery Supply Code, please contact us on grocery.regulation@comcom.govt.nz
Please watch the video below for a high-level summary of the published Supply Code Review Draft Report, Reasons and Decisions.