Supermarket Wolves

Written by: Duncan B. on 6 October 2026

(Photo supplied)

Australian dairy farmers are unhappy with Australian supermarkets, and with good reason.

In April, Coles raised the price of its one, two and three litre bottles of own-brand milk, with the extra money to go to dairy farmers to help with the extra costs of fuel and fertiliser thanks to Trump’s war on Iran. One-litre bottles went from $1.65 to $1.85, two-litre bottles went from $3.20 to $3.55 and three-litre bottles went from $4.65 to $5.15.

In September, Coles announced that the subsidy payments would cease on September 8th. However, while the farmers have lost the extra money, Coles is also slugging consumers because the price of Coles milk has not returned to the former level. One- litre bottles are now $1.75, two-litre bottles are $3.40 and three-litre bottles are now $4.95.

In May, French-owned dairy processor Lactalis also gave farmers a 5 cents per litre increase, but has ended this subsidy at the end of September.

Australian Dairy Farmer president Ben Bennett did not mince his words in describing the supermarkets. He said they had made “a big song and dance” about how much of the temporary increase was flowing through to farmers and processors, but said only about 5 cents of a 20 cent increase actually flowed through to suppliers. “The supermarkets continually masquerade as lambs, but they’re wolves. They’re quite frankly opportunists, and that’s not healthy for a sustainable industry. That hubris character they’ve got is because they’ve got too much power."

Another reason that dairy farmers are unhappy is the increasing amount of cheese being imported into Australia, mainly from New Zealand, the US and the European Union. In 2025-26, 115,825 tonnes of cheese were imported into Australia. This was about 10,000 tonnes more than the previous year. 37,842 tonnes came from New Zealand, 46,456 tonnes from the US and 29,263 tonnes from the European Union.

Australian dairy farmers and processors are angry that Australian dairy imports into the US face a tariff of 12.5%, while the US has open access to our market landing cheese at prices Australians cannot compete with.

The cheese imported from the US is going into cheese sold under house brands in supermarkets, such as Woolworth’s Hillview Tasty Cheese. US cheese is also being used by fast food chains such as Guzman Y Gomez in its 255 stores selling Mexican-style food. Guzman Y Gomez has also stopped using Australian pork in its restaurants. Instead, they will be importing 25 tonnes per week of frozen pork from Denmark, at a saving of $1.50 per kilo over the local product.

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