Savvy shoppers saving - survey - NZ

Savvy shoppers saving - survey - NZ

Christchurch shoppers are wising up to big supermarkets "raking it in", looking for better deals at smaller specialist food stores, a new study says.

A Lincoln University study says while Foodstuffs dominates the Christchurch market, with New World and Pak 'n' Save comprising more than half of all supermarket visits, specialist stores were making inroads on their bigger competitors.

Of the 629 Christchurch households surveyed, 68 per cent said they bought their vegetables and fruit at specialist stores compared with just 15 per cent in a similar study in 1996.

Specialist butchers were also more popular, with 52 per cent of those surveyed saying they bought their meat at butcher shops compared with about 10 per cent in 1996.

Lincoln University Associate Professor Charles Lamb, who heads the business management department, said yesterday the rise of specialist food stores could be considered a direct response to increased profits by New Zealands's supermarket duopoly.

"The big corporates have been raking it in for quite some time, and all of a sudden they've been caught with their pants down," he said.

Of those surveyed, 34 per cent said cheaper food was the main reason for buying vegetables and fruit at a specialist stores, indicating smaller stores were managing to undercut the big supermarkets despite having less buying power, Lamb said.

"These alternative places are having quite an impact."

Asian food markets had also gained ground on conventional supermarkets, he said.

Foodstuffs, which owns Pak 'n' Save and New World, and Progressive Enterprises, which runs Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths, account for 95 per cent of the market.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures released last November show New Zealand's food prices had risen 42.5 per cent since 2000, well above the OECD average of 33 per cent and ahead of Australia, the United States and Britain.

At the time, some commentators blamed Progressive and Foodstuffs' market duopoly for the price rises, an accusation both firms denied.

Yesterday, Foodstuffs chief executive Steve Anderson again dismissed claims a supermarket duopoly was inflating food prices, pointing to Statistics New Zealand figures showing food prices had fallen 1.3 per cent in February.

While the recession had adversely affected fruit and vegetables sales, no evidence existed of an exodus of shoppers to speciality stores, he said.