Believe it or not, supermarket ‘price gouging’ is not to blame for your high grocery bill

There are the products that consumers will look for in specials, which are priced with one eye on the competition, but you can't comparison shop your whole store.

Prices will also vary depending on your own needs. Fruit, vegetables and meat are all perishable.

The closer to their expiry dates, the more likely is it that they will be marked down in price. The same is true for most other stock items, although timelines will be longer.

Each supermarket manager is trapped in a delicate dance. Most of their costs are fixed, and they can only play around to a limited extent with staff productivity, increasing turnover through marketing, and optimal pricing strategies.

I doubt whether from minute to minute most managers are even sure they are going to make their miniscule margins apart from what their historical records show them. There certainly is no room for drastic reductions in grocery prices. Nor could they be said to be driving inflation.

In reality, they are the victims of inflation as much as the rest of us.

Inflation raises their finance costs, and erodes margins on their existing stock, making quick turns even more imperative, and it diverts staff from selling and merchandising to constantly adjusting the price on items.

Expect the inquiries to tell us everything we already know

As the long and unsuccessful history of government interference in this area shows, there is not much that can be done about controlling grocery prices by controlling supermarkets.

The real solution lies in an efficient, freely operating economy that will deal with each of the inputs to prices in the most effective way.

Unfortunately, which brings us back to the need for scapegoats, this is the opposite type of economy to the one that the Albanese government has decided we must have. The economy needs less regulation rather than more.

Given the nature of inquiries, the ACCC will have to find something to change. You can't spend all that money and get nothing in return.

Let's hope those recommendations don't do too much to raise grocery prices, because they are unlikely to do anything to lower them.