‍👉 Background: ALDI is the German supermarket chain that was founded back in 1946 which first opened up in Australia in 2001, and now has nearly 600 stores. It quickly became popular for its low pricing and weekly special buys where you can pick up your weekly meal prep ingredients and a viral reformer pilates machine.

‍👉 What happened: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are investigating four of ALDI’s veggie suppliers for allegedly working together to fix the prices of broccoli, cauliflower, iceberg lettuce, and other veggies that are sold to Aldi. The ACCC claims price fixing happened in ALDI stores across 3 different states between 2018 and 2024, where these four veggie suppliers privately agreed to submit the same price for their produce in ALDI’s weekly agile price bid.

‍👉 What else: Instead of competing with one another fair and square, this is a big no-no in the ACCC’s eyes. So the accused businesses could face fines up to $50 million if found guilty after the investigation.

‍What's the key learning?

‍💡Price fixing is the idea that businesses who are supposed to be competing with each other, secretly agree to set the same prices for their products — instead of letting the market decide.

💡This is considered anti-competitive behaviour because companies are supposed to compete in a free market. Competition leads to lower prices, better quality and more choices for customers. But when so-called competitors fix the price, its means there's no real competition… so customers end up paying more than they should.

💡Back in 2007, the ACCC investigated Australian paper recycling company, Visy, engaging in price fixing behaviour with its competitor Amcor. Visy was found guilty and fined $36 million for its anti-competitive behaviour.