Farmers say fair prices from the nation's supermarkets remain nowhere to be seen with new research revealing the two major supermarkets are charging up to $19 more than Aldi for a basket of groceries.
According to a price comparison released by CHOICE on Tuesday, Aldi was 25 per cent and 27 per cent cheaper than Coles and Woolworths respectively when purchasing a basket of comparable grocery items.
NSW Farmers Principal Economist Samuel Miller said a year of headlines about bad behaviour had done little to lower prices for Aussie families ahead of their Christmas food shop.
"The facts are clear - families are battling a cost-of-living crisis at the checkout this Christmas, while farmers are suffering with low returns at the farm gate," Mr Miller said.
"The only winners this festive season are the major supermarkets, and it's sad to see Aussie households put under unnecessary stress with unnecessarily high food prices.
"Wherever you shop, you deserve fair prices at the checkout - and similarly, farmers deserve fair prices for all the fresh, world-class food they work so hard to put on our tables not just for Christmas, but every single day of the year."
As the nation's competition watchdog continued to scrutinise supermarket behaviour, Mr Miller said it was vital competition reforms addressed the pricing practices that continued to plague the sector.
"Merger reforms and a mandatory Food and Grocery Code are a positive step towards better prices, but they're certainly not the end of our grocery woes," Mr Miller said.
"We need solutions to increase price transparency, an economy-wide prohibition on unfair trading practices and new divestiture powers to bust apart duopolies in cases of extreme bad behaviour, if we want to sort these superpowers for once and for all.
"Aussie farmers need to be able to afford to keep growing fresh food, and families need to be able to afford to buy it."
