Coles Group, widely recognised by its flagship supermarket brand Coles, ranks among Australia’s largest and most prominent retail enterprises. Its primary supermarket division offers groceries, fresh produce, household essentials, and general merchandise, while the broader Coles Group encompasses liquor retailing, online commerce, financial services, and retail media. The company traces its origins to 9 April 1914, when George James Coles established the first Coles store in Collingwood, Melbourne.1

Today, Coles is synonymous with Australian grocery shopping, supermarket convenience, value pricing, and private-label products. From its beginnings as a small variety store, it has grown into a large omnichannel retailer serving millions of customers through both physical outlets and digital platforms.

According to the FY2025 Coles Group annual report, the company is one of Australia’s leading grocery retailers, operating 860 supermarkets and 998 liquor stores alongside its digital platforms.2

At its core, Coles is a supermarket chain. A typical Coles supermarket stocks:

• Fresh fruit and vegetables
• Meat and seafood
• Milk and dairy products
• Bread and bakery items
• Frozen foods
• Canned and packaged goods
• Snacks and confectionery
• Beverages
• Baby products
• Pet food
• Cleaning supplies
• Personal-care items
• Household goods
• General merchandise

However, the modern Coles business extends well beyond traditional supermarket retailing. Coles Group describes its operations as comprising fresh food, groceries, and general merchandise, together with Coles Online, Coles Financial Services, and Coles 360 retail-media services.3 Customers interact with the brand through physical supermarkets, online shopping, home delivery, and Click & Collect services.

The history of Coles begins with George James Coles, commonly known as G.J. Coles. On 9 April 1914, he opened the first Coles store on Smith Street in Collingwood, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne. This original outlet was not the modern supermarket familiar to Australians today but rather a variety store offering a wide selection of goods at relatively low prices.4

G.J. Coles’ philosophy centred on providing ordinary Australian families with useful products at affordable prices. The company’s historical ethos can be summarised as:

Value, affordability, convenience, and service.

This emphasis on value has remained integral to the Coles identity for over a century.

During its early decades, Coles expanded beyond its original variety-store model. The company experimented with discount pricing, product displays, sales catalogues, large-format stores, self-service shopping, new distribution systems, and private-label products.

A pivotal shift occurred during the 1950s, when Coles began converting stores to self-service formats, allowing customers to select products themselves rather than relying on shop assistants.5 This marked a significant step towards the modern supermarket concept.

1960: The Supermarket Era

In 1960, Coles opened what it describes as Australia’s first freestanding supermarket in North Balwyn, Victoria. Designed to enable customers to complete much of their weekly household shopping in a single location, this development transformed Coles from a variety retailer into a major food and grocery retailer.6

Throughout the 1970s, Coles focused heavily on value and discounting. A key development was the introduction of the Farmland range of private-label food products, which allowed Coles to sell goods under its own brands rather than relying exclusively on national manufacturers.7

In 1971, Coles launched a major price-reduction programme covering thousands of items. This reinforced a recurring theme in subsequent marketing: Coles competing on price and value.

The 1980s brought significant technological and corporate changes. In 1982, Coles introduced electronic scanning technology in its stores, improving checkout efficiency and enabling itemised receipts.8

Coles also diversified beyond supermarkets, expanding its liquor operations to include brands such as Liquorland and Vintage Cellars, and entering other retail categories through acquisitions.

Coles Myer

A major corporate milestone occurred on 25 July 1985, when Coles merged with Myer Emporium to form Coles Myer Limited,9 creating one of Australia’s largest retail groups.

The company subsequently underwent a complex period of acquisitions, restructuring, and divestments. Coles Myer sold its Myer department store business in 2006, refocusing on food and retail.

In 2007, Wesfarmers acquired Coles Group in a transaction valued at approximately A$19.3 billion, integrating Coles, Kmart, and Target under the Wesfarmers corporate structure.10 This period proved significant in Coles’ modern history, as Wesfarmers invested heavily in improving the supermarket business.

Under Wesfarmers ownership, Coles underwent a substantial turnaround. One of its most recognisable marketing campaigns became “Down Down”, which emphasised permanently lower prices and became strongly associated with the brand’s competitive positioning.

Concurrently, Coles invested in new supermarket formats, fresh-food presentation, supply-chain improvements, store renovations, customer service, private-label products, online shopping, and responsible sourcing. The company also developed various animal-welfare and responsible-sourcing initiatives during this period.11

A major turning point arrived in 2018, when Wesfarmers decided to separate Coles from the rest of its business. The demerger was approved in November 2018, and Coles Group returned to the Australian Securities Exchange on 21 November 2018 as an independently listed company.12

This established the current corporate structure. Coles is no longer owned by Wesfarmers; it operates as an independent publicly listed Australian company, Coles Group Limited.

It is important to distinguish between the two entities:

Coles

Typically refers to the supermarket brand visible on store signage and shopping websites.

Coles Group

Refers to the broader publicly listed company that owns and operates multiple businesses and brands, including:

Supermarkets
* Coles
* Coles Local
* Coles Online

Liquor
* Liquorland
* Liquorland Cellars
* Liquorland Warehouse

Other Businesses and Services
* Coles Financial Services
* Coles 360
* Swaggle
* QuiteLike
* Flybuys relationship

The company has been consolidating parts of its liquor portfolio. In 2025, Coles announced a national rollout of “Simply Liquorland”, involving the conversion of Vintage Cellars and First Choice Liquor Market stores to the Liquorland brand.13

The supermarket business remains the heart of the company. Coles describes its operation as a full-service supermarket retailer. As of FY2025, it operated approximately 860 supermarkets across Australia.14 Stores range from conventional large-format supermarkets to smaller concepts.

Coles Local

Coles Local is a smaller-format concept designed for urban and convenience-oriented shopping. Compared with large suburban supermarkets, these stores generally emphasise convenience, fresh food, ready-to-eat products, smaller shopping trips, and urban locations.

Coles has developed into a significant omnichannel retailer. Customers can shop via Coles’ digital platform, selecting options such as home delivery, same-day delivery in eligible areas, overnight services, Click & Collect, and online grocery ordering. Coles Online serves as a vital extension of the physical supermarket network rather than a separate business.15

A major component of Coles’ identity is Coles Brand, its own range of products sold under the Coles name. This range covers hundreds of everyday staples, including milk, bread, pantry items, snacks, dips, desserts, frozen foods, and household products.

Coles states that its product-development teams create new products using testing and tasting processes before they reach shelves. Private-label products are strategically important, allowing Coles to compete on price, quality, and differentiation, while providing greater control over the products offered to customers compared to selling external brands alone.

Price is arguably one of the most critical elements of Coles’ brand identity. Its competitive proposition has historically centred on:

Value → Convenience → Quality → Freshness

The company has repeatedly used price campaigns, most notably Down Down, to reinforce this positioning. Coles competes particularly closely with Australia’s other major supermarket chain, Woolworths. Together, the two companies hold a dominant position in Australian supermarket retail, meaning Coles’ pricing decisions significantly impact Australian consumers and food suppliers.

Coles places strong emphasis on fresh food, with its supermarket proposition featuring fruit and vegetables, meat, bakery items, deli products, seafood, and dairy. The company has also highlighted Australian sourcing; its corporate history notes that sourcing policies have resulted in high proportions of Australian-sourced fresh produce, meat, milk, and eggs.16

Fresh food is strategically important as it differentiates supermarkets from retailers focused solely on packaged groceries.

Coles Group maintains a substantial liquor business. Historically, the portfolio included Liquorland, Vintage Cellars, and First Choice Liquor Market. The company has been restructuring these banners around the Liquorland brand.

The liquor operation is now a major part of Coles Group, with the FY2025 annual report recording 998 liquor stores.17

Coles is closely associated with Flybuys, one of Australia’s leading loyalty programmes. Coles holds a 50% shareholding in Loyalty Pacific, the company associated with Flybuys, and is a significant participating partner. According to Coles Group, Flybuys has more than nine million active members.18

For Coles, loyalty data supports customer retention, personalised offers, promotions, understanding shopping behaviour, and reward programmes.

The company has extended its brand into financial services through Coles Financial Services, which has offered products including insurance, credit cards, and personal loans. This represents an example of Coles leveraging its consumer brand beyond grocery retail.19

Coles 360 is Coles’ retail-media business, enabling brands and suppliers to advertise to consumers through the Coles ecosystem. Advertising and promotional opportunities may connect with Coles stores, digital platforms, customer data, and shopping journeys. Retail media has become an increasingly important business model for major supermarkets due to their extensive first-party shopping data.

Coles’ brand identity is strongly associated with several key concepts:

Australian Heritage

Coles has operated for more than 110 years, giving it an unusually long history among Australian consumer brands. The company celebrated its 110th anniversary in April 2024.20

Value

Affordable groceries and competitive prices have been central to the company’s positioning since its early history.

Freshness

Fresh produce and fresh food are major components of its supermarket proposition.

Everyday Family Shopping

Coles traditionally positions itself as a supermarket for ordinary household shopping rather than a specialist retailer.

Convenience

The business increasingly combines physical supermarkets with online ordering, delivery, and Click & Collect services.

The Coles visual identity has evolved considerably throughout its history. The modern brand is recognisable for its red-and-white visual identity, with the word “Coles” presented in a distinctive lowercase logo.

This intentionally simple and highly visible identity functions across store signage, shopping bags, packaging, websites, mobile applications, advertising, and private-label products. Such visual simplicity is advantageous for a supermarket, as customers encounter the brand repeatedly throughout their shopping journey.

Coles is not merely a chain of shops but a vast national logistics and technology operation. Its infrastructure includes supermarkets, distribution centres, automated distribution centres, customer fulfilment centres, online platforms, supplier networks, cold-chain logistics, warehousing, and delivery operations.

The FY2025 report states that Coles employs more than 115,000 team members, works with more than 8,000 suppliers, and has more than 400,000 shareholders.21 This scale is essential, as supermarkets depend on reliably moving enormous quantities of products from suppliers to stores daily.

A supermarket’s competitive advantage extends beyond its stores. Behind every Coles supermarket lies a large supply-chain network involving farmers → suppliers → distribution centres → stores → customers. The company operates an integrated supply chain and national distribution-centre network.22

Coles has also invested in automation and advanced distribution technology. For example, in 2019 it announced partnerships with Witron and Ocado to develop automated distribution and fulfilment capabilities.23

Coles positions itself as a participant in broader Australian social and environmental issues. Initiatives have covered responsible sourcing, animal welfare, food waste, Australian agriculture, community partnerships, and support for small businesses.

Historically, Coles has also emphasised charitable giving. Its own history notes that during the Great Depression, it donated a substantial share of profits to hospitals, nursing homes, and unemployment-relief efforts.24 This provides continuity between the company’s early history and its modern corporate-responsibility programmes.

For many Australians, Coles is part of everyday life, encompassing weekly grocery shopping, school lunches, family dinners, Christmas shopping, fresh produce purchases, and online grocery delivery. Because supermarkets are involved in such routine activities, brands like Coles maintain a particularly strong presence in popular culture. Its advertising campaigns, products, mascots, loyalty programmes, and price promotions are familiar to generations of Australians.

Coles’ most significant competitor is Woolworths. The two companies compete across grocery prices, fresh food, private-label products, supermarket locations, online grocery shopping, loyalty programmes, home delivery, advertising, and supplier relationships.

This competition is often described as Australia’s supermarket duopoly, although other retailers such as Aldi, Costco, IGA, and independent supermarkets also compete in the market. Coles therefore occupies a position comparable to a national supermarket giant rather than a niche grocery retailer.

Coles is important for several reasons:

1. Economic importance: It is one of Australia’s largest retailers and employers.
2. Consumer importance: Groceries are essential purchases, so supermarket prices directly affect household budgets.
3. Agricultural importance: Coles works with thousands of suppliers and Australian farmers.
4. Retail innovation: It has helped introduce and popularise self-service, electronic scanning, private labels, online grocery shopping, and automated logistics in Australian retail.
5. Cultural importance: After more than a century, the Coles name has become deeply embedded in Australian everyday life.

As of the FY2025 reporting period, Coles Group describes itself as a leading Australian retailer with a national network of approximately 860 supermarkets and 998 liquor stores, supported by digital platforms and a large supply chain. It employs more than 115,000 people and works with more than 8,000 suppliers.26

Its strategic direction increasingly combines physical stores, online shopping, loyalty data, automation, private-label products, and retail media. Modern Coles is evolving from a traditional supermarket chain into a technology-enabled omnichannel retail company.

25

1. Our history | Coles
2. About us | Coles Group
3. 2025 Annual Report
4. 2025 Annual Report
5. Biography – Sir George James Coles – Australian Dictionary of Biography
6. Our history | Coles Group
7. 20 September 2019
8. Acquisition of Coles
9. Media releases | Coles Group
10. View Coles Brand everyday essential products | Coles
11. Investors | Coles Group
12. Annual General Meeting | Coles Group
13. Coles Group Ltd 2025 Annual Report with Sustainability Disclosures – Free PDF
14. Coles : Annual Report | MarketScreener
15. Media releases | Coles Group
16. Media releases | Coles Group
17. About us | Coles Group
18. Reports | Coles Group
19. Executive leadership team | Coles Group
20. Sustainability Report | Coles Group
21. Results and presentations | Coles Group
22. Biography – Sir Edgar Barton Coles – Australian Dictionary of Biography
23. Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles, National Portrait Gallery
24. Sir George Coles KT CBE, National Portrait Gallery
25. Appendix 6 – Time Line of Retail Grocery Trends – Parliament of Australia
26. Coles Group Ltd 2025 Annual Report – Free PDF