Unit pricing here

Most of us don't have time to do the arithmetic and don't normally take a calculator to the supermarket. That's where unit prices on shelf labels come in.

Unit pricing means displaying the price of goods per unit of measure - per 100g or per litre, for example. This makes it easy to compare the price of products that come in packs of different sizes.

So what are the major supermarkets doing about unit pricing?

New World and Pak'n Save stores don't show unit prices on their shelf labels. Melissa Hodd, executive manager of Foodstuffs New Zealand which controls these stores, says the company is watching developments in Australia. Unit pricing may become compulsory there - and Foodstuffs is interested in whether it's effective and meets shoppers' needs.

The company has no immediate plans to introduce unit pricing: it sees significant compliance costs. Although they're owner-operated, individual New World and Pak'n Save stores can't introduce unit pricing because they use Foodstuffs' integrated computer-pricing system.

June 2009 update: Foodstuffs is to introduce unit pricing in 2010. Read more in our news item.

Woolworths, Foodtown and Countdown have displayed unit prices in some stores on thousands of lines for more than 10 years, says Bill Moore of Progressive Enterprises (which operates these supermarkets). The company is working towards unit pricing in all its stores, but can't confirm if it will be available on Woolworths Online.

This at least is a start. But Progressive could do more. Not all its stores use the same print size for their unit-pricing labels and Countdown's is particularly small.

Pricing accuracy

Pricing accuracy is also vital. Unit-pricing campaigner Ian Jarratt says he's found discrepancies and errors in the unit prices of some Progressive supermarkets in Christchurch that he's brought to the attention of Progressive and the Commerce Commission.

The Commission has sent a "compliance advice" letter to Progressive and has recommended that Progressive review its internal systems to ensure all unit pricing is accurate.

Progressive says it has identified a system error in recently introduced software and corrected the matter.

Global trend

In the European Union all but the smallest shops must give unit prices for all their pre-packaged goods. And several states in the US have mandatory unit pricing.

In July 2008 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) published a report recommending a mandatory unit-pricing regime for standard grocery items - both on instore price labels and in print advertising. The Australian government is considering the best way to introduce such a scheme.

There are many issues to consider: which items would be included; which stores (how big? what type?) would have to use it; what measurements would be used (per kg or per 100g? per litre or per 100ml?). And what about toilet paper and kitchen towels? As well, the formatting of the labels would need to be specified. Information isn't much use if you can't read it.

Two Australian discount supermarket chains, Aldi and Franklins, have already introduced unit-pricing schemes. Woolworths Australia is running a unit-pricing trial and says it intends to roll out the system to all its supermarkets.