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Guy Trafford compares the cost of red meat in our supermarkets with what it sells for in another offshore market, and contrasts that with what farmers are paid. Making meat more affordable won't be easy

Rural News
Guy Trafford compares the cost of red meat in our supermarkets with what it sells for in another offshore market, and contrasts that with what farmers are paid. Making meat more affordable won't be easy
27th Jul 21, 9:55am by Guy Trafford

While the international Global Dairy Trade (GDT) prices for milk products have taken a minor turn for the worse, meat and in particular lamb are going from strength to strength.

Progressive/Countdown are now paying on the advertised schedule $9.00 per kg for lamb in the South Island with the North only a tad behind. It is no wonder there are starting to be a few squeals coming from consumers about the price they are having to pay.

The $9.00 translates into prices ranging  at the supermarket (Countdown) from $19 per kg for shoulder chops up to $33 for lamb steaks. A leg of lamb is $21 per kg. Prime beef which is floating around the $6 per kg for farmers is getting up to $35 and beyond for Scotch fillet and prime mince at $18. Stewing steak is (still) at $9.00 but did look a bit gristly and so a long cook would be required.

Having a look on the Sainsbury website in the UK as perhaps a comparable export destination supermarket to Countdown, a leg of New Zealand lamb there is worth £11 per kg and their top value local beef is £33 (30 day matured). With the New Zealand dollar being worth £0.51 then the UK £ price can be doubled to get a rough comparison.

So, the leg of lamb is pretty comparable although the beef is through the roof in the UK. The UK prices make it understandable why at least lamb meat prices are high in New Zealand. If the UK are paying humongous prices for beef the presumably that is a reflection of the international prices.

But it does ask the question why farmers here are still only getting $6 per kg.

The high international prices are unfortunately cool comfort for those in the domestic market who are having to compete at these levels.

There are no doubt cheaper places to but meat than Countdown, a quick look at a couple of ‘direct purchase’ websites surprised me by actually being more expensive. Farmers are contributing to food banks via the “Meat the Need” charity. However, this is not putting red meat onto Kiwi’s plates. From where I sit there are no easy answers.

To provide more affordable meat someone in the chain has to take a haircut, the easy finger pointing goes to the retailers, notably supermarkets. However as can be seen their prices are not over the top when compared to UK prices and no doubt I could have found more expensive sites. Farmers are not making so much that they can trim their margins so then the focus goes to Government; could or should they consider subsidising staple foods.

In some ways they are, by providing WINZ top ups to lower income families et al to access more groceries. However, apart from more basic meat cuts WINZ top ups are not going to reach the mid to top end cuts.

Get rid of those pesky ads! Find out how.

Interfering directly with food pricing is a dangerous path to go down. Argentina has some crude government controls restricting beef exports to provide cheaper domestic meat. This was/is in response to 60-70% increases in the price of food and a 50% annual inflation rate overall.

Needless to say, beef farmers are not happy there and their government plan to increase beef production from 3 million tonnes to 5 million, thereby being able to swamp the local market and presumably bring down prices, has no detail and farmers are highly sceptical.

Prior to the latest controls, about 70% of Argentina’s beef (5th largest beef producer worldwide) was/is going to China. The latest restrictions may provide more opportunity for New Zealand beef to fill some gaps.

Did anyone else notice irony of the gaff of Minister of Trade and Agriculture late last week? It happened on the same day that media were highlighting the 40th anniversary of the start of the 1981 Springbok tour - the tour where Muldoon was sticking to the principle of "sport and politics don’t mix", something we know has proved time and time again to be wrong, even if we may not agree with it.

What Minister O’Connor said is "This is a security issue. It's not a trade issue. We have no reason to believe that there should be any reaction".

Unfortunately, security and trade are certainly aligned and trade is a well-travelled ‘weapon’ to inflict pressure on other countries and often over security matters. A gaff at best, highly ironic on the Springbok tour anniversary. And who does he think he is kidding? China?

P2 Steer

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84 Comments

by  PocketAces  |  27th Jul 21, 11:13am 1627341181

We need to remove GST from basic food items as is done in Australia and England, then compare prices, which I suspect will still be much higher here because of profiteering and an unwillingness of supermarkets to pass the saving on. But that is a start point.

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by  lowercase capitalist  |  27th Jul 21, 12:58pm 1627347521

Easier said than done though. How do you define a basic food item? The UK spent many millions litigating whether a jaffa cake is a cake(a luxury) or a biscuit(a staple). Repeat that across hundreds of edge cases and the whole thing may well be more hassle than its worth.

https://www.kerseys.co.uk/jaffa-cakes-cakes-biscuits/amp/

Btw, a jaffa cake goes soggy when stale and is therefore a biscuit.

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by  Noncents  |  27th Jul 21, 1:24pm 1627349098

Yes, it creates a whole bunch of perverse outcomes.

I believe the USA had the same issue with school lunches. Tomato sauce was approved (Successfully lobbied) as a serve of Fruit and Veg so that they could include pizza as a menu item.

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by  Advisor  |  27th Jul 21, 2:39pm 1627353576

I don't know how changes in tax regulation could make up for this 'she'll be right' attitude in shopping aisles.

Several studies have for years found that the average Kiwi is poor at shopping around for better deals; a market feature that emboldens retailers to price their items higher.

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by  Noncents  |  27th Jul 21, 2:58pm 1627354695

Kiwi's are poor shoppers primarily because they have no options. It is very much a rigged game in NZ.

Fuel, Groceries, Power, etc.... no real competition, collusion on price, ineffective consumer protection, the list goes on...

I mean - are you really "shopping around" because you went to Pak n Save instead of New World?

Maybe we could embrace modern shopping methods and go online. Oh wait, xyz.com wont deliver to NZ, or has NZ specific pricing because they know we are stuck as per the above.

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by  Smudge02  |  27th Jul 21, 1:45pm 1627350300

Anything in its original, unprocessed form should have GST removed.....fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts etc. Not perfect but at least its a start. If families can afford fruit, vegetables and meat then thats got to be better than processed crap.

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by  Advisor  |  27th Jul 21, 2:49pm 1627354149

The problems begin when the word 'unprocessed' means something else in the context of different food groups or items.

'Processes' that involve shelling nuts, washing vegetables, pasteurising milk, canning fruits in their own juice, etc. make it harder to define and monitor.

At the end of the day, you can also rest assured on the likes of Fonterra and other food lobbies to try and slip as many of their product offerings as possible through the cracks.

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by  Smudge02  |  27th Jul 21, 3:06pm 1627355211

This is exactly the problem, it doesn’t need to be complicated. Raw form, so a shelled nut is still raw form, washed veges is raw form, fruit in juices is raw form. Sure there will be some gray areas like milk but we can at least make headway with the above mentioned rather than continually arguing semantics as we so often do.

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by  Lanthanide  |  27th Jul 21, 4:57pm 1627361856

Yeah, I think this is simply isn't as big a problem as people like to make out. Ok, so some people end up having to define things and have arguments about it. There's some extra cost involved in that, no doubt.

But meanwhile, everyone else will be saving 13.04% on basic food items compared to what they currently pay (assuming retailers properly pass on the GST savings).

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by  Noncents  |  27th Jul 21, 5:05pm 1627362332

No, retail is based on the price people can pay.

You would see a 15% reduction on the day the law came in, then within a week or two it would be back to the same price, only this time no GST.

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by  Foxglove.  |  27th Jul 21, 6:49pm 1627368541

Cynically, realistically, unfortunately you are exactly right. Same thing would happen if GST was removed from council rates, they would be right back to where they were in less than a year. What should happen is GST collected should be dedicated to its source and invested back into the relative industry. Bit like speed camera revenues going into road maintenance, which of course it doesn’t.

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by  Noncents  |  27th Jul 21, 5:04pm 1627362249

The thing is simple is really hard to get right. To make is simple you need to draft a term that is can be unilaterally interpreted and applied to each thing with no further input/discussion, and with regards to this topic, there are agendas galore who will all be fighting for their preferred interpretation.

So the grey area is essentially everything.

A plain apple may be raw form

But what about
An artificially ripened apple?
A frozen apple?
An apple in individual wrapping?
A peeled apple in a bag?
A peeled chopped apple in a bag
A peeled, chopped apple in a tin with juice?
A peeled, chopped apple in a tin with syrup?
A peeled, chopped apple in a tin with juice and ground cinnamon?

Can it be pasteurized? Homogenized? or have some other sort of preservation treatment?
What additives can be used? Salt? Sugar? if so how much?
Can raw form include concentrates?
Can it be heated? i.e. is a stewed apple still "raw form" if nothing else changed?
Can it be dehydrated?
If multiple "raw forms" are combined, is it still raw form?

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 3:10pm 1627355430

This is a noble idea but it is a nightmare in practice. Define what a basic food is? Is frozen vegetables a basic food? Is bread a basic food. If so does the $10 loaf from an upmarket bakery still considered a basic food? Are pre chopped vegetables a basic food? What about a burgers, pizza’s etc. The compliance cost would be a nightmare as it was in Australia when GST was introduced. There a much simpler ways of ensuring the GST portion of the cost is affordable. Creating a tax free threshold at the bottom end of the scale and then slightly lowering the threshold of one of the others can give an effective tax cut to lower income earners without any difference to higher earners.

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by  Smudge02  |  27th Jul 21, 3:34pm 1627356856

Ok....(deep breath), so a vegetable that is cut up and snap frozen is still a vegetable ie raw form, a burger or pizza is obviously not!

Actually I give up, forget I ever said anything and leave GST as it is.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 9:24pm 1627377878

Pizza is a basic food if tinned tomatoes are a basic food along with bread and cheese and some form of processing is allowed like mixing chopped vegetables and freezing them. But I agree leave gst as it is.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 9:25pm 1627377914

Pizza is a basic food if tinned tomatoes are a basic food along with bread and cheese and some form of processing is allowed like mixing chopped vegetables and freezing them. But I agree leave gst as it is.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 9:25pm 1627377930

Pizza is a basic food if tinned tomatoes are a basic food along with bread and cheese and some form of processing is allowed like mixing chopped vegetables and freezing them. But I agree leave gst as it is.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 9:26pm 1627377964

Pizza is a basic food if tinned tomatoes are a basic food along with bread and cheese and some form of processing is allowed like mixing chopped vegetables and freezing them. But I agree leave gst as it is.

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by  Lapun  |  27th Jul 21, 4:26pm 1627359995

a delight for computer programmers, accountants, tax officials and small corrupt businesses. I was in IT - why create work when there is so many useful productive things we could be doing

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by  Lanthanide  |  27th Jul 21, 4:59pm 1627361965

Saving people 13.04% of the costs of healthy foods isn't a productive thing to do?

Sounds more productive for society as a whole than a lot of IT work.

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by  Palmtree08  |  27th Jul 21, 4:29pm 1627360199

The public just needs to support competition, instead of dutifully trotting down to the local branch of the cartel, as advised by the flashy advertising they are paying for through their purchases. Better quality produce is half the price at our local farmers market. But no. Having a good whinge and expecting to be spoon fed is the order of the day!

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by  Officebound  |  27th Jul 21, 6:36pm 1627367777

"The way to fix this, is added complexity in the tax system"

Good luck with that.

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 9:01pm 1627376490

Removing GST from certain items leads to creative accounting. We all lose, as it adds even more bureaucracy to keep up with the fraudsters. Best to keep taxes simple. Also it does not take long for retailers to fill the price gap and wrought the system.

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by  imhenry  |  28th Jul 21, 7:34am 1627414446

GST is a goods and services tax. leave things alone. Quit with the Red Herring arguments

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by  andreas_od  |  27th Jul 21, 12:40pm 1627346402

we are paying too much for absolutely everything in this country.

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by  Carlos67  |  27th Jul 21, 1:38pm 1627349914

The first problem in comparative pricing is quality. Don't compare export quality with the stuff were are left with in our supermarket. The quality of meat here is poor and its expensive. Steak quality is random and is generally tasteless to the point I prefer a quality low fat mice in a Spaghetti Bolognese anytime but you have to juice the hell out of it with 3/4 of a cup of Shiraz, Italian herbs, onions and garlic to make it a meal to die for.

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by  Belle  |  27th Jul 21, 2:30pm 1627353048

Just wondering where you get your quality low fat mice Carlos? My cat wants to know.

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by  sparrow  |  27th Jul 21, 3:09pm 1627355381

That's actually not true at all Carlos, I supply both local trade and export and there is no difference in quality.

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by  Lanthanide  |  27th Jul 21, 5:00pm 1627362043

I've always been a bit dubious about the claims regarding meat quality. But for vegetables and fruit I believe it.

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by  Foxglove.  |  27th Jul 21, 7:34pm 1627371255

In the 70/80s a lot of local abattoirs upgraded to export standard. That actually was a double edged sword because the EEC had imposed stringent and expensive standards with the aim to price NZ meat product off the market. Therefore that meant that a lot of product, eg mutton carcasses, incurred that high processing cost regardless of the fact it was never going to end up there, but nonetheless, that cost was sought to be recovered in pricing for the local market.

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 9:09pm 1627376947

I hope you drunk the rest of that shiraz Carlos67. Makes the meal even better!

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 9:10pm 1627377001

I hope you drunk the rest of that shiraz Carlos67. Makes the meal even better!

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by  powerdownkiwi  |  27th Jul 21, 2:01pm 1627351292

Actually, if we 'priced' fossil energy correctly, meat would be off the menu.

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by  Lapun  |  27th Jul 21, 4:28pm 1627360099

Off the average homes dining table but on the menu at posh restaurants.

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by  pacifica  |  27th Jul 21, 11:20pm 1627384815

So would imported vegetable proteins... which most of them. In fact most processed food would also be off. So apart from damaging the health of most the populace your anti meat agenda serves what purpose... Oh just your own, well that is funny.

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by  morepork  |  27th Jul 21, 2:19pm 1627352363

On the other hand, the price of chicken has fallen significantly over the last 10 years or so. For many it has become substituting one protein source for another.

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by  Carlos67  |  27th Jul 21, 2:30pm 1627353036

True but thats a really sad state of affairs and the same as what England did decades ago when the move was to Chicken and Pork for the average person who could no longer afford red meat, are we going to let that happen here ?

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by  morepork  |  27th Jul 21, 3:18pm 1627355918

I like my read meat as much as the next person, but health wise chicken is as good if not better. Taste wise it's different, sure, but chicken meals can be made to be as tasty as red meat ones in my opinion, not everyone will agree there. Red meat is more expensive to produce and is in demand, so naturally it should be more expensive.

The animal welfare issues around poultry farming are certainly a concern, and perhaps there should be better standards in place there which would increase the price of chicken.

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by  PocketAces  |  27th Jul 21, 4:15pm 1627359300

If you are concerned about welfare issues then why on earth would you eat it?

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 9:40pm 1627378844

Chicken and pork are cheap protein because of their fast breeding potential and quick growth rates. Which equates to the perfect human protein requirement. All indoors with crops or food scraps brought in to them. I honestly don't see a problem with producing food like that. So our sheep and cattle roam around eating grass but most are locked into small paddocks and moved everyday. Most have no shelter from wind or rain let alone the sun, poor buggers. So ladies and gentlemen, what do you propose we should eat?

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by  pacifica  |  27th Jul 21, 11:33pm 1627385597

the rich?

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by  PocketAces  |  28th Jul 21, 7:57am 1627415824

The problem is these (pigs especially) are sentient beings, and that is no way to treat one. I do not eat any pork or pork products because of this

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by  positivelywallstreet  |  27th Jul 21, 2:36pm 1627353417

We eat chicken but is the true the male chicks are minced alive as was reported in Europe this morning?
Puts one clean off.

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by  Belle  |  27th Jul 21, 2:39pm 1627353586

And if you inspect your chicken wings some have broken bones and bruising. I cant and wouldnt send a sheep or cattle beast to the works with a broken leg.

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by  sparrow  |  27th Jul 21, 3:13pm 1627355594

Just as well, it would be a good way to get a visit from MPI.

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by  Quiet Desperation  |  27th Jul 21, 2:58pm 1627354706

This might be a huge eye opener for you: http://watchdominion.com

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by  sparrow  |  27th Jul 21, 3:06pm 1627355187

That "documentary" is cherry-picked footage, edited to look as bad as possible and nothing that's shown complies with animal welfare legislation. It's absolutely not typical.

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by  Quiet Desperation  |  27th Jul 21, 6:19pm 1627366793

You can defend and try to justify this cruelty all you want, I've seen it extensively first hand. Even when all the rules are followed, this system is hidden away from people for a reason. The impact it has on the workers there is horrific as well.

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by  sparrow  |  27th Jul 21, 6:41pm 1627368090

What exactly? Certainly slaughtering animals is very confronting for a lot of urban dwellers, but to me that just demonstrates how sanitised and distanced from nature modern life is.

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by  Quiet Desperation  |  27th Jul 21, 11:05pm 1627383929

You think that's natural?.. Have you looked at the biomass figures for animals bred for human use vs wild animals on the planet currently? You don't need to look far to see how destructive and removed from nature it is. We'll eventually see change in this area once the impact can no longer be ignored, and that time is coming. But don't worry, long before your way of thinking dies out, any real change will already be far too late.

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by  pacifica  |  27th Jul 21, 11:56pm 1627386975

I have seen chickens eat their own flock while they are still alive & eggs in the nest and ducks strangle ducklings. If anything humans cause far less pain and trauma than the bird species we eat do to each other. Fact of life and nature. These birds are omnivorous and humans are as well (we tend to try to avoid farming pure predators though for obvious reasons in that they are more solitary, difficult to work with and bad for health when eaten). We just apply laws and standards, birds don't. Or do you think the animals you eat also have a moral code when it comes to your time to be dinner. You are such an urbanite you have never seen or lived with these animals long enough to see how dark and violent their natural behaviour is even when given optimum conditions and plenty of space and food. Nature is not green and fluffly cuddles. It is more the colour of blood and shit. And if you raise chickens you might see a lot of both from their own actions (even with ample and nutritionally balanced food).

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by  Galloleous  |  28th Jul 21, 8:56am 1627419408

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/universe-25-the-mouse-uto…

Talking about animals being cruel. This experiment put half a dozen mice in the perfect utopia and watched what happened.
Population peaked at 2000, and since there was nothing to do, they lost interest in reproducing and went extinct rapidly afterwards.
Sounds comparable to the human population in developed countries with less than sustainable birth rates...

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by  Quiet Desperation  |  28th Jul 21, 1:26pm 1627435573

How much have you actually read and seen of these 'perfect utopia' experiments? Unlimited access to food and water, while confined in a small environment that was then further segregated, where the location of the food and other aspects were manipulated to create stressful situations for the inhabitants, is hardly a utopia for anyone.

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by  Quiet Desperation  |  28th Jul 21, 1:31pm 1627435879

You rush to call me an urbanite, with no idea of my background or experience. This must be your go to accusation for anyone who expresses a different opinion about this. I'm well aware that nature is not a Disney movie. But animals in these systems have been bred so extensively through the years and so removed from their natural environment, that it is hardly any wonder why they exhibit such behaviour to a much greater extent than is natural to them. Take any animal and put it in such a system - many of them deprived of the opportunity to nurture their young as they naturally would, or at all, before they are ripped away, for generation after generation of human controlled breeding, and see what this does to them and their instincts. They are not so different, that such interference does not affect them as it would us.

You think you understand nature so well, yet you have no problem manipulating, distorting and twisting it so extensively to benefit yourself, and still call the result of this natural. The only thing truly natural about such a horrific system, is our all too human propensity for the dark and violent nature you mention. Nothing can hope to compete with us there.

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by  pacifica  |  29th Jul 21, 10:42pm 1627555341

Actually the wild species closely related to these birds (and there are still many not bred through animal husbandry over the millennia) are far more violent and even less able to tolerate others of their species. It seems you really are entrenched in city views as you did not even bother to research species natural behaviour without human influence outside of your little bubble. Next time try to learn a little bit more about animals before you go on proselyting to outcomes that would only further harm multiple species, including other more vulnerable humans.

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by  Officebound  |  27th Jul 21, 7:29pm 1627370954

Yep, Chicken and Pork that have come down in price, almost exclusively from productivity gains at the expense of welfare.

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by  alexanderblack4743  |  27th Jul 21, 2:30pm 1627353010

Cherry picking, prime cuts are a similar price in uk, but cheaper cuts almost half the price of nz, eg beef mince, pork belly etc.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 3:14pm 1627355686

I got pork belly for $8/kg last weekend. Whole eye fillet for $21/kg (frozen). All here in NZ

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by  WestieAJ  |  27th Jul 21, 3:07pm 1627355259

The NBR Rich List is peppered with current and former supermarket owners.
ALDI AU Scotch Fillet on sale NZ$ 26.90 (converted) Countdown on sale $31.90 kg normally $37 kg
ALDI AU 1kg Beef mince NZ$ 10.75 kg Countdown $15.50 kg normal price
ALDI AU 500kg Tasty Cheese NZ$ 5.36 Countdown $10.00 kg Both home brands

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by  PocketAces  |  27th Jul 21, 3:38pm 1627357109

None of the arguments for or against taking GST off basic food, alters the fact that we pay 15% tax on that leg of lamb whereas Australians and Britons do not.

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by  Belle  |  27th Jul 21, 3:44pm 1627357460

Between now and October beef schedules sit at their highest as numbers of fat cattle are at the lowest at the end of winter early spring. With lamb, numbers peter out at this time til new season lambs hit the market. Its really not a great time to do a comparison. Try the other 9 months of the year.

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by  waymad  |  27th Jul 21, 4:03pm 1627358607

The earnest naifs who urge the foobarring of GST need to recognise three essential aspects of defining 'food', 'processed', 'basic' and the like:

  • Supermarkets carry between 10 and 40 thousand SKU. Not all are food but the majority are. So the maintenance task alone of correctly defining the tax treatment of each and every item is immense. Who pays? Check a mirror.
  • Suggesting differential tax opens a massive can of worms and completely foobars the simplicity and lack of exemptions which our current regime, whatever else its flaws, provides. Be careful whatcha wish for....
  • Observe the experience of our neighbour across the ditch. Even figuring the correct input deductions allowed for various stripes of food outlets is a Gubmint job creation scheme extraordinaire. Guess who pays...

. I seem to have explored this topic before.....

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by  PocketAces  |  27th Jul 21, 4:13pm 1627359182

See my comment a few above yours. Whether it is good/easy/bad/difficult to remove GST from basic food items, it IS done in Australis and Great Britain, it is not here, so I have found a considerable amount that explains some of the discrepancy between the price of a leg of lamb here and the price there, freight notwithstanding.

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by  waymad  |  27th Jul 21, 5:51pm 1627365068

You clearly have neglected the overheads of ATO: try deciding which 'food' retailer you are, and start to think about compliance, accounting, penalties if you get it wrong, and who pays for all of the above....https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/GST/In-detail/Your-industry/Food/

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by  pacifica  |  28th Jul 21, 12:16am 1627388219

They can track arbitrary points & points bonuses that change from day to day against each individual purchase item I think a very rarely changing tax value is far less work computationally and with far less human input. After all they don't need to change the tax like they do for pricing and points corresponding to items for different stock week to week, day to day. The tax field is far less of a concerning part of the equation done by computer at the very end as it stays mostly unchanged long term than did Bob type in the right price & discounts each day for the special ticket items and print out the right labels (where the price changes almost on a weekly/daily basis not the tax rate applied automatically by the service & database register).

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by  PocketAces  |  28th Jul 21, 8:01am 1627416116

Aaargh. I was pointing out the difference between countries!!!!!!!!!!!

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by  morepork  |  27th Jul 21, 4:47pm 1627361257

Rent is exempt from GST, and look where that got us

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by  Lanthanide  |  27th Jul 21, 5:08pm 1627362508

Supermarkets carry between 10 and 40 thousand SKU. Not all are food but the majority are. So the maintenance task alone of correctly defining the tax treatment of each and every item is immense. Who pays? Check a mirror.

Most of this work would only be done once, though. Yes, new SKUs get periodically introduced, but almost everything in the produce department would be GST exempt. Maybe some frozen things end up being exempt. When a supplier sells you a new product you've never had before, in addition to telling you the country of origin, they tell you the GST compliance required, and you simply load that into the computer system at that time.

I think the only really valid concern is that removing GST off 'healthy' or 'basic' food or whatever you want to call it, is perversely much more beneficial to high income households than it is low income ones, because they would spend more in total on that GST and thus it works out as a bigger savings for them. Although in percentage terms, the low income households save more.

So the argument is we should keep GST as-is, and provide targeted assistance to low income households. Which is what the government actually does, but perhaps they need more assistance or better targeting.

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by  waymad  |  27th Jul 21, 5:58pm 1627365503

And the classic 'mixed basket' dilemma instantly occurs: buy two breads, one pottle of relish, and get a half price Smeg knife. One bundle price of $xxx. Tell me the correct GST treatment.....And the bundle changes daily, as do specials.....

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by  pacifica  |  28th Jul 21, 12:03am 1627387394

Oh noo they will have to spend exactly the same amount of time scanning each item and letting the computer reference the stock data & calculate a very simple equation in microseconds as they normally do.

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by  pacifica  |  28th Jul 21, 12:11am 1627387900

They can track arbitrary points & points bonuses that change from day to day against each individual purchase item I think a very rarely changing tax value is far less work computationally and with far less human input. After all they don't need to change the tax like they do for points corresponding to items for different stock week to week, day to day. I have managed sales stock and ERP systems, trust me the tax parts are very far from the part any actual human work goes into and the price is far more likely to change (hence the limited one off work to add a tax field is already being done on a daily scale for all items everyday anyway for other fields). Or do multiplication and basic sums scare you so much you fear even letting a computer or calculator do them for you.

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by  DaveB1978  |  27th Jul 21, 9:38pm 1627378702

The supplier occurs the cost of deciding the gst status of a particular item. It is not as simple as it sounds. Who is responsible in the event of an error? If it is the supermarket, then they would need to do their own assessment.

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by  pacifica  |  28th Jul 21, 12:21am 1627388504

Because nowhere in the world is there a database register for the price of items and the ability to record the tax against them. Nope we cannot track the prices of stock either for the same reason that database technology or code scanning readers for packaging have not been invented yet... Oh wait.

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by  waymad  |  28th Jul 21, 6:57am 1627412248

All of Youse have concentrated on the technical aspects at point of sale. No-one has grasped the real nettle - the introduction of arbitrariness, special pleadings, and pork-barrel politics into the definitions of tax rates for classes of items. So in Oz, a glazed bun is ok as glazes are not Processing, but add poppy seeds on top and whoops, Processed. One can easily imagine the procession of carve-outs which would ensue, as every single-issue group appears before the Commissioner of Revenue to present their case. Soon, there would be a massive Directory of Food, as in Oz, to guide the hapless retailer, baker, cafe, roadhouse or delicatessen through the Byzantine maze of Food Taxes. Still, glass half full, hunting, fishing, and home veges will remain Exempt from the basilisk stare of IRD.....And it would be, to continue the meme, a Happy Hunting Ground for lawyers, tax practitioners, accountants, and other Legal Eagles and Birds of Prey. Why, it could get as good as the Navigational Consultants needed as pathfinders for District Plans in an RMA context. All economic dead weight.....all negative productivity. Careful wotcha wish for.....

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by  sadr001  |  28th Jul 21, 10:15am 1627424125

Actually as a big data specialist the 2 key difficulties with calculating the pricing in this scenario lies in the potential for combination products and arbitrary human definitions of processed and unprocessed which can change for every new product that appears (thousands of new products get developed every day, not all of them successful). Once you surmount the “human” factor you are left with the computational infeasibility of working out actual rates for all combinations of all products (O^n^x) is the way we would have expressed it back in University. When n and x are both potentially infinite (as you could potentially combine an unlimited number of different products in an unlimited number of different ratios). Pre computing a single cardinality of infinity and storing it in a finite database is impossible (we just compute the specific figures as required). Trying to pre compute and store data at the second cardinality of infinity sounds like something that only you can possibly help us with. I do look forward to you advancing the field of big data soon :)

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by  waymad  |  27th Jul 21, 4:11pm 1627359078
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by  Firstclass  |  27th Jul 21, 4:54pm 1627361688

I spoke to a farmer friend and honestly what they get paid for meat and what the supermarket charge is WORLDS APART ! They need to come closer.

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 10:04pm 1627380296

To Firstclass, As a farmer myself I would have to come to the defence of the retailers. Most meat processors pay for the cartage of the animals from the farm then they process the whole thing into whatever cuts. Always remembering they have invested millions in to the factories where this is done. Then there is the refrigerated storage( not cheap) and on to refrigerated trucks to be distributed around the country. Then you have further processing at the supermarkets and someone has to put the product on the shelf. I could go on but you can surely understand that everyone has to be paid along the way.

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by  Hans Brink  |  27th Jul 21, 10:06pm 1627380388

To Firstclass, As a farmer myself I would have to come to the defence of the retailers. Most meat processors pay for the cartage of the animals from the farm then they process the whole thing into whatever cuts. Always remembering they have invested millions in to the factories where this is done. Then there is the refrigerated storage( not cheap) and on to refrigerated trucks to be distributed around the country. Then you have further processing at the supermarkets and someone has to put the product on the shelf. I could go on but you can surely understand that everyone has to be paid along the way.

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by  False economies  |  27th Jul 21, 6:12pm 1627366326

I'm surprised there's no Cooperative supermarket here like there is in the UK.
It's not-for-profit and pays rewards to people who sign up. Generally cheaper than some of the others (although aldi and lidl may have changed that) but with some ethics thrown in.
Just like farmlands for groceries really.

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by  Casual Observer  |  27th Jul 21, 8:25pm 1627374327

Foodstuffs North Is and Foodstuffs Sth Is are actually cooperatives - just not a farmer co-op. ;-)

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by  False economies  |  27th Jul 21, 8:50pm 1627375809

Thanks for that, I hadn't realised that.
Not quite the same as the UK Coop though where Joe public can be a member. It would be good to have consumers being owners as well, otherwise it's still all about profit.

EDIT: Funny, I just saw this on Stuff https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125882108/new-world-store-owner-spoke-… not quite got the ethics of the UK Coop

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by  PocketAces  |  28th Jul 21, 7:55am 1627415736

That is what needs happen in rental housing as well

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by  fortunr  |  28th Jul 21, 8:31am 1627417876

Just facilitate entry into of the NZ market by the likes of Lidl and Aldi. Then sit down and admire the NZ duopoly suffer a while and then be forced to price reasonably all their products.
The current situation is a joke and a clear result of the lobbying by the grocery mafia in NZ. Sadly, we have had Governments with no balls whatsoever to act decisively in favour of a real free market in benefit of the consumer.

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