Price controls on essential food items: draft legislative provisions

This chapter considers how the level of price caps could be set.

We are proposing an item-level price cap, under which retailers that sell a specified food product would be required to offer at least one qualifying variety at or below a maximum price. It is proposed that the maximum prices be set in Regulations.

This chapter explores the question of how a price cap ceiling might be set and alternative models that could be used.

We recognise that determining the maximum price is not straightforward. There are a number of possible approaches to determining an appropriate level of price cap, and each involves balancing the benefit for consumers, responsiveness to market conditions and impacts on producers, retailers and other parts of the supply chain.