Grocery Code Of Conduct Training For Suppliers Launched

The New Zealand Food and Grocery Council (NZFGC) is offering grocery suppliers a comprehensive training programme on the Grocery Supply Code of Conduct.

The Code is designed to help create a better and fairer grocery sector and goes live on 28 September 2023.

The grace period for Regulated Grocery Retailers to make any changes to their supply agreements and negotiate with Suppliers on these changes ends in March 2024. Suppliers would be well placed to have a robust understanding of not only the legal requirements of the Code but also its ‘intent’. This will ensure they are able to negotiate from a position of knowledge of the Code. Both the Australian and UK Codes are focused heavily on leveraging the intent of the Code, not just the legal position.

The training programme offers open, in-house workshops and self-paced digital learning. It covers an introduction to the Grocery Industry Competition Act and all the grocery Code regulations and requirements, addresses the implications for suppliers, and provides advice on how to work with it, and the avenues available to raise concerns. It is heavily case-study-based, exploring all the major issues that occur in the supplier / retailer commercial relationship. It has been developed to be relevant to all customer-facing roles, including sales, marketing, category and supply chain.

On completion of the programme, participants will be invited to complete an assessment, and on successful completion of that they will be awarded the NZFGC Code of Conduct certificate. This is intended to compliment the typical trade practices training that suppliers undertake.

The programme has been developed with NZFGC’s learning partner NextGen Group – which has partnered with the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) for nearly a decade and trained more than 5000 executives in that time – with support from Matthews Law.

NZFGC Chief Executive Raewyn Bleakley says as a result of working with AFGC, NextGen intimately understand the issues, challenges and opportunities that a supply Code offers.

“They have the perfect background to ensure participants will be fully up to speed on the requirements of the Code come February.”

Further information on training options and dates is on the NZFGC website.

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