Hey Peanutter, i can tell you my friends story.....

Her family has a farm. They grow fruit. They are quite a large farm, one of the biggest of it's type in Aus. They were selling their fruit, under their brand, to one of the big 2 supermarkets. IT was a huge percentage of their business. When their contract was up this big supermarket chain said they would only buy their fruit if they could also sell it under their own label. And they were only willing to pay x amount. Which was MUCH less than they were previously paying. They basically said, if you don't agree to our terms, we wont buy any of your fruit at all. So they pushed them into a corner, screwed them right down and then sold my friends fruit at a reduced cost under their own label, so no-one would buy their more expensive branded version. They are bullies. Things like this happen constantly.

I refuse to buy home brand. Yes, i guess i can afford not to, but we'd all like save money where we can. I have no issue with the quality of it, but again, the big supermarkets buy the product from people, and sell it cheaper, undercutting the original supplier who becomes the competition. This eventually leads to smaller businesses not being able to produce their own product. They either fold, or don't package their own products and sell the product 'raw' to the supermarkets to package and sell cheaply. If this trend continutes, there will be no small businesses. Instead of having a few choices of one product, we may ONLY be able to buy homebrand and they will be able to charge whatever they like as they have priced everyone else out of the market. I like to have a choice. and i don't like bullies.

The are so big that often businesses don't have a choice, they have to agree to their demands or they wont buy from them.

Did you follow the story of the $2 milk? That $2 milk has devastating effects on farmers trying to make a living. They can't produce the milk for the price the supermarket is willing to pay. But again if they don't sell to the 2 big supermarkets, they don't have a lot of choice to sell it elsewhere. So yes, i still buy milk for $4 or $5 to support the farmers. Dairy farmers 'at war' with Coles, Woolworths