The Australian grocery market, by the numbers

Start with the headline figure. The ACCC's Supermarkets Inquiry issues paper puts the Australian retail grocery sector at $135 billion, citing Hunt Export Advice's Australia market overview as at February 2024. That is the pool every ranging conversation is ultimately about, and it is large enough that a fraction of one category in one retailer is a real business.

Who holds it matters more than how big it is. The ACCC's final Supermarkets Inquiry report, dated February 2025, estimates national shares of supermarket grocery sales at Woolworths 38 percent, Coles 29 percent, ALDI 9 percent, and Metcash, the wholesaler behind IGA and the proxy the ACCC uses for the independents it supplies, 7 percent. Two buying teams sit across roughly two thirds of supermarket grocery sales.

Definitions move the numbers, so be careful comparing sources. Roy Morgan's last detailed public release, covering calendar 2019 and using a broader definition of the grocery market that includes fresh food specialists, put Woolworths at 32.9 percent, Coles at 26.6 percent, ALDI at 12.4 percent and IGA at 7.3 percent. Same market, different fence around it. When someone quotes a share at you, ask what denominator they are using.

Woolworths' Australian Food business booked $51.45 billion in sales in F25, the 52 weeks ended 29 June 2025, up 3.1 percent on a normalised basis, according to Woolworths Group's full year results announcement. The same announcement puts group sales across all segments at $69.1 billion.

Coles Group reported FY25 sales revenue of $44.35 billion for the 52 weeks to 29 June 2025, with the Supermarkets segment contributing $39.99 billion, up 4.3 percent normalised, per its 2025 full year results release. The same release puts the store network at 860 supermarkets after eight openings and four closures during the year.

For a supplier the practical reading is scale of obligation, not just opportunity. A national ranging in either major means supplying hundreds of stores through their distribution centres at the rate of sale you forecast, with DIFOT measured on every delivery and chargebacks of typically 1 to 5 percent of invoice value when deliveries miss. The revenue lines above are why the compliance bar sits where it does.

ALDI opened its first two Australian stores at Bankstown Airport and Marrickville in 2001 and now operates more than 595 stores across six states with more than 17,000 direct employees, according to its corporate site. The ACCC notes it took ALDI more than 20 years to reach a 9 percent share of supermarket grocery sales, which is the single best statistic on how hard large scale entry into this market is.

The independents route runs through Metcash. Its Food pillar recorded sales of $10.6 billion including tobacco in FY25, the year ended 30 April 2025, and $8.8 billion excluding tobacco, within group revenue, including charge-through, of $19.5 billion, per Metcash's FY25 results announcement. The same announcement reports the IGA network added 22 stores in the year and accounts for roughly 60 percent of Metcash's Food sales.

For an emerging brand these channels do different jobs. ALDI's limited range model means few branded slots and a different buying conversation. The independents, reached through Metcash and its banners, are often where rate of sale evidence gets built, store by store, before a majors range review. Real numbers from a smaller channel beat projections from no channel.

The quiet number in all three results announcements is own brand. Woolworths reported its Own and Exclusive Brand sales up 5.0 percent in F25, outperforming its branded sales growth, per its full year results. Exclusive to Coles sales reached $13.7 billion in FY25, up 5.7 percent normalised, with the premium Coles Finest tier growing 13.6 percent, per Coles' results release. And Metcash reported private label sales in its Food pillar up 7.6 percent in FY25.

Read those three lines together and the pattern is consistent. At every major buying desk in the country, the retailer's own range is growing faster than the brands beside it. When you pitch, the space you want is increasingly held by a product the retailer owns, while your line has to fund a retailer margin of roughly 25 to 45 percent plus trade spend and still leave you a per unit profit.

That is not a reason to stay out. It is a reason to bring a case built on category growth, incremental shoppers and price points the own brand does not hold, because being merely better than the private label is an argument the buyer hears daily and funds rarely. The buyer decides, and own brand performance is part of the profit and loss they defend.

Woolworths Group's eCommerce sales reached $9.1 billion in F25, with Australian Food online penetration hitting 15.1 percent in the fourth quarter, per its results announcement. Coles Supermarkets eCommerce sales were $4.5 billion in FY25, up 24.4 percent normalised, at 11.2 percent online penetration, per its results release.

Two readings follow. First, online is growing far faster than the store networks, so your product content, imagery and search terms inside the retailer apps are now part of the ranging job, not an afterthought. Second, even at those growth rates roughly nine dollars in ten at Coles still move through physical stores, so shelf position, planograms and in store execution still carry the volume. Budget attention accordingly.

Concentration shapes conduct. The ACCC notes Coles and Woolworths have acquired approximately 260 sites between them since 2019, including stores, land and shopping centres, which tells you the structure is not loosening soon. For a supplier that means a small number of buying teams decide most of the volume, on their calendar. Range reviews run roughly every six months, invitations to present can arrive with about two weeks' notice, and a first purchase order typically lands one to six months after a win.

The economics do not change because the market is big. Trade spend commonly runs 10 to 25 percent of gross sales, retailer margins sit at roughly 25 to 45 percent by category, and chargebacks take 1 to 5 percent of invoice value when compliance fails. The environment punishes optimism: 871 Australian retail businesses hit insolvency for the first time in FY25. A $135 billion market is exactly the kind of place you can go broke growing.

None of these figures guarantees anything about your product, and nobody can. The buyer decides, every time. What the numbers give you is the frame for a case: which retailer, what evidence, and what the money looks like after trade spend. If you want that modelled before you commit to anything, that is what the Retail-Readiness Sprint at Built for Retail is for: a fixed fee of $15,000 for a single retailer scope or $25,000 across multiple retailers, about four weeks, and you keep the model either way. The Sprint is indicative and does not guarantee ranging.