Trust in Coles, Woolworths sinks amid rise in cost of living and public scrutiny, survey shows

Roy Morgan survey data shows public trust in the major supermarket brands has tanked in 2024. (ABC News)

Coles is among Australia’s most distrusted brands, while rival Woolworths has taken a major slide down the rankings of the country’s most trusted brands, according to new survey data collected by Roy Morgan.

Long-running concerns about the cost of living, coupled with accusations of price gouging and a raft of inquiries to the commercial activities of the supermarket sector have seen Coles move from Australia’s fifth most trusted brand in December 2023, to the ninth most distrusted brand by March 2024.

Over the same time period, Woolworths slipped from 2nd on the the list of most trusted brands, to 34th, according to the Roy Morgan data.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said the decline in public trust for the major supermarkets was marked.

“We ask people which brands or organisations they trust and distrust and they can say anything in response,” Ms Levine said.

“We then ask them why they trust or distrust those brands, so the brands have to be very top of mind for people to say they trust or distrust them.”

Failure to sympathise with public concern

During the pandemic years, the Coles and Woolworths brands saw boosts in their trust rankings, while other grocery retailers like IGA and Aldi remained static.

But Ms Levine said a failure to sympathise with the public concern over the rising cost of living, coupled with the unveiling of large revenue and profit announcements in February, saw public trust in the major supermarkets’ brands tank worse than Qantas, Optus or Medibank.

“With Qantas we saw betrayal after betrayal of people’s trust, with Optus and Medicare we had huge data breaches, but with Coles and Woolworths there was no ‘thing’ that happened to people.

“It was almost as if the context and Zeitgeist just changed, the language in the media was all about mortgage rate ‘crisis’ and cost of living ‘crisis’, and the supermarkets were ‘price gouging’,” Ms Levine said.

‘Exclusively focused on their bottom lines’

Discussing the results of the survey data, Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim told News Radio the supermarkets had failed to read the room.

“Coles and Woolworths need to understand that they are major contributors to the cost of living crisis, and their profits shouldn’t be their only driver, because people have to eat, and they have to buy food,” he said.

“I think they are just exclusively focused on their bottom lines, and that’s because their CEOs are on multi-million-dollar annual salary and bonus packages, which are linked to the profits of the companies so the incentive there is just to drive profits, and that means ultimately price gouging.”

The final recommendations of a government-commissioned review by former Trade Minister Craig Emerson will be delivered at the end of June, and a draft report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’ probe of competition in the sector is expected to be finalised by August.