A study came out a couple of weeks ago showing that the food prices in Australia have increased 40% over the past 10 years:
"Australia had by far the fastest food price increases among a group of comparable developed nations, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the G-7 and OECD averages".
The researchers conducting the study blame lack of competition. There are two main grocery store chains here: Coles and Woolworths (or Wooly's, as it's affectionately called). Basically, it would be like if only Safeway and Albertson's were the only grocery store chains in the entire United States. (If you're measuring by population, though, it would be like if there were only two grocery store chains for the greater Los Angeles metro area. There are 22 million people in Australia, 20 million in LA.)
Bottom line? We're not crazy! Food is expensive here!
To lighten this post up a bit, below are some pictures from a recent trip to our local Cole's.
First of all, the shopping carts are very hard to control - they don't go straight. This is a little game we play. Puuuuush the baby down the aisle!
Biscuits = "Bikkies" = Cookies
They hate gluten here. Santa is saying, "Rudolph. It's Gluten Free!" on this bag of Christmas candy.
Pet food is refrigerated. Chilled loaves of meat for dogs and cats.
Eggs aren't refrigerated, they're sold right in the aisle. The carton says to refrigerate once you get them home, though.
I don't think they have this brand in the States.
Confectionary = candy. Cordial = flavored syrup to add to bubbly water. Pronounced, "Core-dee-all." Although they sell home brew equipment, you can't buy booze in the grocery store.
Chicken flavor. They also have chicken and soy flavor or honey baked ham.
They probably have this in the States, like at GNC or something, but this was right next to the pie crusts. It reminds me of last summer. I think it was mid-February, we had been sweating for about three months and saw a guy drinking a carton of egg nog in the middle of the street in the middle of the day! Glug glug glug. There's also a gang of Russian gangsters in our neighborhood that drink buttermilk during morning tea. Straight buttermilk!
This is a seasonal item. 5 kg frozen turkey for about $52.
