Australian consumers have been battered by interest rate hikes and soaring gas prices, but the chairman of a leading food and drinks wholesaler has seen worse.
"I'd say, having worked in retail in Australia for a long time now, I don't think that this is the worst I've seen," Metcash chairman Peter Birtles told the IGA supermarkets supplier's shareholders on Wednesday.
Mr Birtles has worked in retail for more than 30 years, including serving as chief executive of Supercheap Auto and Rebel owner Super Retail Group from 2006 to early 2019.
Since 2022, he's been chairman of Metcash, a wholesaler to thousands of family-owned businesses, including IGA, The Bottle-O and Total Tools.
"You're not seeing the spectre of significant job losses that there have been at other times, which perhaps have had a more dramatic impact," Mr Birtles told the group's annual meeting.
"When you look at the actual level of retail spending, it hasn't been as subdued as potentially some people think, so there's still opportunity out there."
The company revealed on Wednesday that total sales for the first 18 weeks of its current financial year, from May 1 to September 3, rose 3.5 per cent.
But the liquor market remained challenging, with subdued consumer demand and elevated competitive intensity.
Its wholesale sales to liquor stores were flat during the period, while wholesale sales to on-premise customers gained 5.1 per cent, for total sales growth of 0.8 per cent in its liquor business.
Supermarket sales have been resilient and tobacco sales have picked up amid Queensland's crackdown on the black market.
"We'd have to say that Queensland's led the way in terms of enforcement," chief executive Doug Jones said.
"What we've seen is that in relation to our tobacco business, there has been a stronger recovery of tobacco as we've seen those enforcement actions being put into place across Queensland."
Shares in Metcash fell 2.5 per cent to $2.88 in afternoon trading.
