Green MP Teanau Tuiono: New Zealand needs a better food system

Guy Body's take on the Commerce Commission's draft report into competition in the retail grocery sector.

OPINION:

The report from the Commerce Commission on competition in the retail grocery sector needs to spark a national conversation about how producers of food get their product to consumers. This discussion also needs to benefit consumers by improving the options we all have for accessing fresh, quality produce.

The report takes aim at the duopoly formed by Woolworths NZ and Foodstuffs. It paints a grim picture of how our communities are being deprived of access to affordable, fresh food by the overt profit-seeking of these two supermarket chains.

The dominance of the duopoly was emphasised during lockdown when alternatives like farmers' markets were cut out of being an essential service. Many growers who supplied directly to their customers and outlets had huge losses, with wasted produce just left in the fields. This should not happen again.

The Green Party has been calling for action to make the supermarket system transparent and fairer since 2014, when we introduced a member's bill, which would have brought in a mandatory code of conduct for supermarkets.

The Commerce Commission is now, seven years later, considering a mandatory code of conduct as well as options to strengthen suppliers' bargaining power with retailers. This is great news for our growing community.

However the proposal from the Commerce Commission's report to just add another major supermarket chain is a wait and hope approach that does not guarantee fairer prices and better access to fresh food.

Supermarkets, by necessity, support quantity over quality and limit diversity. There is little recognition or celebration of regional differences. We have lost most of the family horticulture businesses that used to dominate the industry in favour of industrial production.

We need a national food strategy for self-sufficiency in food production and security of food supply in Aotearoa New Zealand. This strategy should protect high-value food growing land, promote local food production and processing, investigate the need for a national food and seed reserve, and provide support for regenerative agriculture and organic food-growing initiatives.

This could include the Government sponsoring or underwriting a new consumer and growers' co-operative where the margins could be set fairly, with dividends for both.

We should be striving for vibrant local food economies by providing support for community-supported agriculture, and community-based food initiatives such as food co-operatives, community gardens, public fruit orchards, heritage seed banks and farmers' markets.

As the Commerce Commission prepares its final report, we need to grow this vision for a better food system that can uplift our growing community and consumers. We don't want just another big supermarket that reaps the profits at the expense of us all.

• Teanau Tuiono is a Green list MP based in Palmerston North.