Woolworths and Coles are again Australia’s two most distrusted brands for a second straight quarter, according to the latest Roy Morgan Risk Monitor.

Behind the two supermarkets, with Woolworths ranked first and Coles second, the top seven most distrusted brands were unchanged. This included Optus (third), Facebook/Meta (fourth), Qantas (fifth), Telstra (sixth) and Temu (seventh).

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says there are, however, positive signs – even for some of Australia’s most distrusted brands.

“Importantly, we’re seeing green shoots of recovery for several of Australia’s most distrusted brands – including Woolworths and Coles,” she says.

“The two major supermarkets have finally stabilised and stopped falling deeper into net distrust – but they both still have a long way to go to regain trust.”

In the most trusted brands, Bunnings has come out on top again. This is a sixth consecutive quarterly victory for the hardware retailer stretching back to late 2023.

Filling out the top five places are ALDI in second, Kmart in third, Apple in fourth and Toyota in fifth. All top five places were unchanged from last quarter.

Ms Levine says Bunnings continues to ride high as Australia’s most trusted brand in early 2025.

“However, there are rising challenges for the brand with distrust steadily rising since mind-2023,” she says.

“The key factors driving the rise in distrust for Bunnings centre on concerns about the company’s size and market dominance, excessive profit motives and unaffordable price increases and dishonesty – all topics covered in the recent Four Corners program which focused in on Australia’s leading hardware retailer.”