How competitive is Australian food retailing?
Woolworths is a strong supporter of competition. Competition helps to keep prices low for customers and challenges retailers to deliver the best possible service. The Australian food retail sector is highly competitive which is great news for customers. With a variety of new market entrants plus a growing independent and specialist food sector, there has never been more choice about where to shop.
Notes:
1. Excludes take-aways outlets and cafes/restaurants but includes fresh food specialities and fresh food markets.
2. Mass merchants are department stores and discount department stores.
3.Includes smaller foodstores and independent stores supplied by Metcash as well as larger supermarkets (IGA and Foodworks)
Source: Pitney Bowes MapInfo based on company reports and ABS sources including Household Expenditure, Australia National Accounts and Australia Retail Trade Services.
How we buy fresh food
Fresh food is our business and we've made it our mission to partner with the very best farmers and growers in Australia. We have hundreds of direct trading relationships with fruit, vegetable and meat suppliers.
Our preference is to have direct, long term trading relationships. The benefits of working this way are better quality management, improved planning and forecasting and greater consistency and sustainability of supply.
We are very proud of the relationships that we have with our suppliers and many of them have been able to grow their business thanks to the surety of a long term partnerships with Woolworths. More than 80% of Woolworths suppliers have been our partners for more than 10 years.
How much profit we make
As a listed company, Woolworths Limited releases fully audited and publicly available accounts. Our sales, profit and gross margin are calculated every six months and can be viewed in our Annual and Interim Reports which are available on our Website.
As a group, Woolworths Limited makes about five cents in the dollar before we then pay interest and tax. Our Net Operating Profit is about three cents in the dollar.
