Adrian Portelli Opens LMCT+ Supermarket in Deer Park, Taking On Coles and Woolworths With $99 Membership Model

Adrian Portelli has never been shy about picking fights with bigger players. This week, Australia's flashiest billionaire turned his attention to the country's most concentrated retail duopoly, opening the doors of his first LMCT+ supermarket in Deer Park, a working-class suburb in Melbourne's west, and declaring war on Coles and Woolworths on price.

The pitch is deliberately provocative. Portelli says LMCT+ will undercut the majors on most items, backing it with a 10 per cent price-match guarantee: if a product costs more than it does at Coles or Woolies, he claims he will beat that price by a tenth. The store, which opened Tuesday, stocks locally sourced goods and produce, part of what Portelli frames as giving farmers a fairer shot. Access, though, is not free. Like his chain of LMCT+ petrol stations, the supermarket runs on a membership model, costing shoppers $99 a year. He insists neither venture is currently profitable and that his real focus is stacking up members. "It's a membership game," he said, describing the supermarket as a side quest and "a bit of fun." Shoppers who filed through the Deer Park store gave mixed reviews. One told a 7NEWS crew a mid-week shop ran $20 to $25 cheaper than usual; another said some prices were good and others "very disappointing."

For readers outside Australia, the context matters. Coles and Woolworths control roughly two-thirds of the national grocery market, a level of concentration that has made them a political lightning rod as household budgets tighten. The sector has been hauled before a competition inquiry, accused of land-banking sites to block rivals and of squeezing suppliers, and the major chains have faced sustained public anger over pricing. Into that resentment steps Portelli, a man whose public profile was built on giving away houses and cars through his LMCT+ promotions, then amplified by a string of high-profile property purchases. He is not a grocer by trade. He is a marketer who understands that in Australia right now, taking a swing at the supermarkets is one of the cheapest ways to buy attention.

The membership twist is what makes this more than a stunt. Warehouse clubs like Costco have shown Australians will pay a fee for the promise of lower shelf prices, and Portelli is testing whether that logic can work at suburban scale, bundled with fuel. He is also testing something bigger: whether a personal brand built on giveaways can convert into everyday grocery loyalty, a category where habits are stubborn and margins are famously thin. His own claim that there are "no margins here" cuts both ways. It is a boast about consumer benefit and an admission that the economics are brutal.

There is a political subtext too. Portelli has moved to Dubai and has been openly critical of the Albanese government, saying Australia is "finished" under its current leadership while denying he is abandoning the country. An offshore billionaire railing against domestic politics while selling cheap groceries to outer-suburban Melbourne is an unusual combination, but it fits the mood of a moment when cost-of-living anger is the most reliable currency in Australian public life. The Deer Park opening also lands in a grocery landscape already shifting: Aldi's steady expansion, the arrival of new online players, and regulators circling the majors.

One store in Melbourne's west will not dent Coles or Woolworths. But Portelli has signalled he intends to scale, and the model, if it works, could be replicated fast. The question for anyone tracking wealth in Oceania is whether this is performance art with a checkout counter or the early shape of a genuine third force in Australian groceries. Either way, the billionaire who made his name giving things away has now bet that the most valuable thing he can sell is the feeling of getting one over on the duopoly.