Australia: Retail Foods

Although Australia is experiencing rising inflation, supermarket and grocery store incomes are benefitting by largely passing the price increases on to customers. Profit margins in supermarkets and grocery stores rose by 4.2 percent in 2022. The value of Australian consumer oriented (i.e., snack foods, breakfast cereals, meat and poultry, dairy, eggs and products, fresh fruit and vegetables, processed fruit and vegetables, fruit and vegetable juices, nuts, wine, beer, nursery products, pet food, etc.), fish, and seafood imports totaled US$14.5 billion in 2022. The United States accounted for US$1.4 billion or 10 percent of Australia’s total food related imports. Most of Australia’s imports in these sectors are sourced from New Zealand, and the United States is the second largest supplier.