Revised Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Now in Force

ACCC News Centre

Published April 1st, 2026

Detected April 1st, 2026

Summary

The ACCC announces that the revised Food and Grocery Code of Conduct is now in force for major Australian supermarkets ALDI, Coles, Metcash, and Woolworths. Large grocery businesses must now include specific disclosures in their supply agreements about circumstances allowing agreement changes, supplier payments, and set-off arrangements. Suppliers may negotiate terms at any time and opt-out provisions must include transparency statements explaining why they are reasonable.

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What changed

The revised Food and Grocery Code of Conduct creates new obligations for large grocery businesses regarding grocery supply agreements. These businesses must disclose circumstances under which they can make agreement changes, require supplier payments, or set off payments from supplier invoices. Any 'opt out' provisions must be clearly identified in writing, include a statement explaining they remove relevant code protections, and justify why the opt-out is reasonable.

Large grocery businesses must negotiate in good faith and must not engage in retribution against suppliers. They face additional requirements during range reviews and supplier price increase request negotiations. Suppliers experiencing potential non-compliance can confidentially report to the ACCC or contact the independent Code Mediator for their grocery business to resolve issues informally or formally.

What to do next

Large grocery businesses must update grocery supply agreements to include required disclosures about change circumstances, payment requirements, and set-off arrangements
Ensure any opt-out provisions in agreements are clearly identified with statements explaining they remove code protections and why they are reasonable
Train negotiating staff on good faith obligations and prohibition against retribution

Source document (simplified)

Date

1 April 2026

Topics

Industry codes Food and groceries The revised Food and Grocery Code of Conduct is now in force. ALDI, Coles, Metcash and Woolworths must now include information in their grocery supply agreements about the circumstances in which they can make changes to agreements, require suppliers to make payments, or set off payments from supplier invoices.

Suppliers can request to negotiate terms of their grocery supply agreements at any time. If the supplier and large grocery business agree to vary the terms, the changes must be made in writing.

Opting out of protections

The food and grocery code allows suppliers and supermarkets to ‘opt out’ of protections related to unilateral variations, supplier payments and set off arrangements. If this happens, large grocery businesses must ensure all grocery supply agreements:

identify any ‘opt out’ provisions in the agreement, and
include a clear statement to explain that any ‘opt out’ provision is an exception to, and removes, the relevant code protection, and
explain why the ‘opt out’ provision is reasonable. The purpose of this new requirement is to provide suppliers with more transparency about the operation of the code ‘opt out’ provisions.

Protections for suppliers negotiating grocery supply agreements

Large grocery businesses must negotiate in good faith and must not engage in retribution against a supplier. Additional requirements apply to large grocery businesses during negotiations about range reviews and supplier price increase requests.

If you see potential non-compliance with the food and grocery code, you can confidentially report it to the ACCC. We are always interested to hear from suppliers about their experiences under the code.

Suppliers can also speak to the independent Code Mediator for the relevant large grocery business. Code Mediators can assist to resolve supplier issues or complaints informally or formally.