Harris Farm named Australia’s most trusted supermarket in Finder awards, beating the big chains

Harris Farm, a family-run grocery chain, was voted Australia’s most trusted supermarket after taking four of eight supermarket prizes in Finder’s 2025 Customer Satisfaction Awards.

The chain won the awards for Most Loved, Most Recommended, Most Trusted and Top Rated Supermarket Produce, prizes based on a survey of more than 10,000 consumers conducted by personal finance and comparison site Finder. The results placed Harris Farm ahead of larger national rivals including Woolworths, Coles and Aldi.

Harris Farm operates 33 stores across New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory and reported about $788 million in earnings within Australia’s roughly $120 billion supermarket sector. By contrast, Woolworths and Coles together run almost 2,000 stores nationally, underscoring the difference in scale between the family-owned chain and the major supermarket groups.

Finder’s head of consumer research, Graham Cooke, said the sweep by Harris Farm showed the smaller chain was “really winning in the conversation with the customer.” He told media that emotive categories such as “Most Loved” and “Most Trusted” tended to favour smaller brands that could deliver a more personal shopping experience. “The bigger brands won only in areas where size makes a difference — delivery network and rewards programs,” Cooke said.

Cooke also noted that larger supermarkets had recently faced negative headlines and claims about price gouging that, while often unsubstantiated, may have affected public perception. He said it remained to be seen whether those feelings would persist if and when the cost-of-living pressures eased.

Harris Farm traces its roots to 1971, when David and Cathy Harris opened a fresh-food store in Sydney’s Villawood. The company is now run by two of the founders’ sons, Angus and Luke Harris. Luke Harris described the business model as one grounded in the family’s values of “fairness, freshness, and a real love of food,” saying those values were actively maintained by the family leadership.

Analysts and industry observers said the Finder results highlight the differences between perception and scale in retail grocery. Large supermarket groups typically leverage broad store networks, logistics and loyalty programs to capture market share and sales volume, while smaller chains can compete on product quality, local relationships with growers and a more personalised in-store experience.

Harris Farm’s award wins come amid ongoing scrutiny of supermarket pricing and competition policy in Australia, where policymakers and consumer groups continue to monitor supermarket behaviour in the context of inflation and household cost pressures. The Finder awards reflect consumer sentiment at a point in time and are based on survey responses rather than audit of prices or market share.

For Harris Farm, the accolades provide a consumer-validated endorsement of its brand positioning and may bolster its reputation as the chain looks to retain customers and expand selectively. For larger chains, the results underline the importance of customer perception even as they deploy scale advantages across logistics, online delivery and rewards programs.

The Finder awards were announced alongside results across several retail categories, which this year showed a trend of smaller, more local operators performing strongly in perception-focused categories while larger firms dominated on infrastructure-dependent measures such as delivery reach and loyalty offerings.