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“That is new customers coming into Coles and actually our existing customers visiting us more often as well, so we’re really excited about that.” Sales from Coles’ supermarket business grew 4.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis to $9.96 billion. Revenue from own-brand products grew 5.3 per cent, driven by its Coles Finest range, which boosted sales by 15 per cent in the 13-week period. Meanwhile, Woolworths chair Scott Perkins faced hours of questions from shareholders, some of whom asked about reputation damage and loss of public trust in the company amid price-gouging claims against the nation’s grocery giants. “[Price trust is] clearly an area where Woolworths took its eye off the ball. We took our eye off the ball in a period of quite dramatic change,” he said at Woolies’ annual general meeting, referring to multiple government inquiries into supermarket pricing, the departure of long-serving CEO Brad Banducci, a worker strike that dealt a $240 million blow to sales and consumers’ changing shopping patterns. “It’s early – we’ve got a lot more work to do,” Perkins said.
