Australians struggling with the country’s ongoing cost of living crisis are poking fun at a supermarket advert resurfaced just a few years ago.
The 2017 Coles advert, which featured celebrity chef Curtis Stone explaining how to “feed your family for $10”, was shared this week on the popular Facebook group Australian Memes with the caption: “This guy has been so quiet.” .
Stone shows an actual $10 bill in the ad, something that’s also rare these days, and commentators point out that by 2024, the bill would only cover a bag of Coles grated cheese.
Celebrity chef Curtis Stone explained in 2017 how $10 could buy ingredients to make dinner for the whole family at Coles. Pictured in the ad with a real 10 dollar bill.
The ad campaign featuring Stone, who is from Melbourne but moved to California 17 years ago, was run by the supermarket in 2010 and again in 2017, an indication that prices at the checkout did not rise noticeably between those years.
But inflation has risen sharply since 2020, driven by a combination of factors.
Those factors include the Covid pandemic, conflicts in Europe and the Middle East that have impacted supply chains, and less predictable weather patterns that affect food production.
One of Stone’s 2017 recipes is a homemade mince pie with all the ingredients for under $10.
But according to Yahoo News in a report last year, the exact same ingredients in 2023 will cost more than double: $24.62.
Commenters on the post shared this week said they were frustrated by the cost of food.
“Maybe a dry box of Nutri-Grain for dinner,” said one.
“Nowadays I can’t even make sausages and bread for a tenner, maybe two minute noodles,” said another.
“Stores like Coles and Woolworths are partly responsible for Australia’s inflation rate,” argued a third.
The announcement was shared on the Australian Memes Facebook page this week.
Hundreds of people commented and said they were frustrated by the price of food.
Earlier this year, the Albanian government launched an ACCC investigation into the sector to review supermarket prices.
The review was ordered following accusations of price gouging by major supermarket chains.
A parliamentary inquiry into supermarket prices issued its final report on Tuesday, backing laws to break up big players in the food sector.
Among the 14 recommendations of the Greens-led inquiry were calls for supermarket-specific divestment laws, which would be used if supermarket chains were found to have misused their market power.
Inquiry chair Nick McKim said prices in supermarkets had already fallen.
“We’ve seen prices come down a little bit lately and that’s largely due to scrutiny over the behavior of supermarket corporations,” he told Sunrise on Wednesday.
‘But what we need is not just temporary price falls, we need long-term declines in food and grocery prices in Australia.
“Taking together the recommendations we have made, we believe they will achieve this.”