When purse strings become chains: The hidden cost of market domination

Coercive control and financial abuse are key topics for May’s “Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month” but while most public conversations and events will rightly focus on individual victims of this harm, advocates for fresh produce view this abuse through a different lens – one where we see systemic, systematic, and deeply damaging relationships within our own industry.

Last year QFVG wrote many submissions into the multiple inquiries into our sector. Within the ACCC response we used the term “Corporate Stockholm’s syndrome” to explain the phenomenon we have seen. To explain it further: Our two dominant supermarkets—Coles and Woolworths—control around 85% of the nation’s grocery market. This concentration of power, as identified by the ACCC, doesn’t resemble a healthy duopoly, but rather a monopsony—a market where there is essentially only one buyer. In practice, this creates a financial stranglehold not just on consumers, but critically, on our fresh produce growers, particularly those dealing in perishable, non-branded products.

This imbalance plays out in deeply unfair ways. Growers are often expected to accept prices with little or no negotiation. Agreements can be changed after produce is harvested—or even while it’s already en route. Crops that took months to grow can be rejected or devalued without warning.

When fresh produce growers are forced into insecure, opaque, and one-sided contracts, many—especially those in family-run farms—lose their financial independence. This added layer of economic control has direct impact on financial survival and business viability.

This is not just tough trading—it’s systemic financial pressure that leaves growers vulnerable and disempowered. And for growers who live and breathe this system – we have observed a deep loyalty (due to the power imbalance) to a corporate entity which mistreats them but who holds their livelihoods in their hands – hence we use the term ‘Corporate Stockholm syndrome”

Several of the ACCC’s recommendations aim to confront this injustice. Measures such as banning unilateral price or volume changes, enforcing transparency in negotiations, allowing growers to use their own branding, and establishing an independent body to report wholesale pricing are not just economic reforms - they are mechanisms of financial protection—tools to give vulnerable parties - the grower - a VOICE and a CHOICE.

The theme of this year’s DV Prevention Month, is “Take positive action today to build a safer Queensland”. If we are serious about ending abuse, we must confront all its forms—including those hidden behind boardroom doors and retail shelves.