Every grocery shopper in Australia is probably familiar with pricing per unit of measure for packaged goods.
What’s less widely known is how this came about from Ian Jarratt’s 2006 Churchill Fellowship, studying consumer practices in the USA and Europe. Ian saw first-hand how unit pricing allows people to easily compare prices and values between different sizes, and between packaged and unpackaged products.
His report recommended that Australian grocery retailers should be required to provide unit pricing for packaged products. It also stressed the need for consistency between this new unit pricing and the existing unit pricing arrangements for products were sold unpackaged, for example meats, seafoods, and fruit and vegetables.
Ian’s work on unit pricing continued after completing his Fellowship report. He used the report and the experience gained on the Fellowship to campaign with other consumers and consumer bodies for Australian grocery retailers to be required to provide unit pricing for packaged grocery products.
The campaign was successful. Since December 2009 federal legislation (administered by the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission (ACCC)) has required very large supermarkets and some online grocery retailers to display the unit price of packaged grocery products prominently, legibly, and close to the selling price.
Ian also participated heavily in consultations on the proposed legislation, especially on its scope, display requirements for unit prices, and the units of measure to be used for unit pricing specific products.
The resulting system is used by many grocery shoppers to compare the prices and value for money of different package sizes and brands as well as packaged and unpackaged products
However, Ian believes the current system is not achieving its full potential, because too many unit prices are difficult to notice and read, and there are inconsistencies in the units of measure used for the unit price of items of the same product.
Consequently, since 2009 Ian has being vigorously advocating for improvements to the system, as well as undertaking and encouraging research on unit pricing, and promoting its use.
Ian’s advocacy for improvements has been unsuccessful until this year when:
- A Senate inquiry into supermarket prices recommended that the Australian Government amend the Unit Pricing Code so that supermarkets are required to “adopt a mandatory information standard for unit pricing, including improvements to the legibility and prominence of unit prices, and changes in price and size of products, in line with consumer expectations”; and
- The Interim Report of ACCC’s Supermarkets Inquiry published in September 2024 said it wants to ensure that unit pricing is as valuable as possible for consumers and that unit pricing is a key issue for the remainder of the Inquiry which has to be submitted by 28 February 2025.
- On 2 October 2024 the Prime Minister, Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury indicated that the federal government plans to:
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- Strengthen the Unit Pricing Code to ensure supermarkets are providing the information Australians need to find the best deal.
- Consult on improvements to the Code like:
- Improving readability and visibility of unit pricing in stores;
- Addressing inconsistent use of units of measure across supermarkets;
- Whether to expand the scope of retailers covered by the Code;
- More specific prominence and legibility requirements; and
- Improving the use of unit pricing in cross-retailer price comparisons.
- Introduce substantial penalties for grocery retailers who breach the Code.
Ian says the Federal Government’s moves to improve the unit pricing system are an extremely important breakthrough.
Click here to listen to the Churchill Collective podcast episode on Ian’s Fellowship and his subsequent journey to achieve change.