Bunnings - Product quality and safety

Bunnings sells an extensive range of products that are used in conjunction with safety instructions and personal protective equipment. These include gardening equipment, hand and power tools, and electrical products.

The safety and wellbeing of Bunnings’ team members and customers remain its highest priority. Bunnings aims to ensure that every product purchased from Bunnings will be safe, fit for purpose and comply with the relevant Australian, New Zealand and international or voluntary standards.

Bunnings works closely with its suppliers to ensure due diligence for quality and safety performance is embedded. During the financial year, Bunnings monitored this through multiple channels, including third party testing and independent product reviews.

As a retailer of household and trade chemicals, Bunnings holds the required registrations and licences for the retail storage and handling of chemicals classified as dangerous goods. These requirements are in place at all relevant sites which store and handle these products to ensure compliance with relevant regulations in Australia and New Zealand.

In May 2024, Bunnings conducted an independent product safety labelling assessment to identify continuous improvement opportunities. During the year, Bunnings also commissioned a proactive review across selected product categories, including cleaning, automotive, pool chemicals and BBQ accessories to monitor compliance to trade measurement laws and consumer expectations. 

Bunnings maintained its focus on compliance to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) mandatory standards for button batteries and products containing button batteries, resulting in three voluntary product recalls during the financial year. To ensure continued product safety, Bunnings Button Battery Guide outlines design, testing and labelling requirements for all relevant suppliers of products containing button batteries. 

In November 2023, Bunnings committed to removing engineered stone benchtops from sale to customers by the end of 2023, ahead of the introduction of regulation to prohibit the use, supply, and manufacture of engineered stone from 1 July 2024. Bunnings applies the definition of ‘Engineered Stone’ as set out in the Model Work Health and Safety regulations, which includes all products with engineered stone requiring any further cutting or drilling (e.g., kitchen benchtops and the top of bathroom vanities). 

During the year, Bunnings maintained their ISO9001 quality certification requirements and conducted third-party inspections for high-risk electrical products. This provided improved transparency on quality indicators for electrical products, prior to shipment to Australia and New Zealand.

In the coming year, Bunnings will continue its focus on strengthening product sourcing processes to apply additional due diligence requirements for exclusive and directly sourced products. In New Zealand, Bunnings will work to improve customer understanding of building product information requirements through product labelling and in aisle communication.