Broomes owner Mick Macedone said the latest price war was undoubtedly designed to force the “little guys” out of the market but his family-owned store wasn’t going to back down.

“It’s obvious that’s what they want to do – knock out the private sector and control it themselves,” Mr Macedone said.

“But we’re going to survive because we’ve got a big heart.

It’s a lifetime’s work for us, we’re third generation in the business and we can beat them on quality and service any day.

“We’ll stand by our customers and hope that they’ll stand by us. We’re the last surviving independent grocer left in Griffith, and we’re staying here.”

On Monday, Coles announced it would slash the prices of selected fruit and vegetables by half and Woolworths followed suit two days later with its own “price slashing campaign”.

But Mr Macedone said the only way the supermarkets could afford to slash their prices so drastically was because they dictated how much they pay growers.

“Unlike grocers, they don’t buy from the control marketing system but draw from their own warehouses so they get to nominate the price to growers and if the growers don’t sell at that price they cut them from the supply chain,” he said.

“The only way to stop this is to make them buy from the control marketing system like everyone else but the government won’t put something in place to protect growers so it has to be up to the consumer to make a choice.”

Mr Macedone said the big two supermarkets were also taking advantage of natural market trends to make themselves champions of consumers by price cutting.

“They’re doing this now because there’s a lot of produce on the market and the prices are low anyway,” he said.

“If they were as good as they say they are why didn’t they do this when they were selling bananas for $12 or $13 a kilo?”

While Mr Macedone understood such low prices could attract the consumers to the bigger supermarkets, he said nothing could replace the quality and reliability of a local grocer.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time their stuff is more expensive anyway,” he said. “You have to remember you get what you pay for. Our products hit the shelves in one day while theirs take six days.”