The GVH launched an accelerated sectoral investigation on the milk market

According to the statement, the consumer price of milk and milk products has risen to a large extent recently, and this process continues to this day, while the competition office has received signals that the supplier positions of domestic production and processing companies have weakened.

It was found that several factors had a direct impact on the actors of the dairy industry and consumers in recent years, such as the pandemic, the economic effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the increase in production costs, as well as legislative changes.
However, according to the GHV, it is reasonable to examine to what extent these factors exerted their influence at different levels of the value chain and to what extent they may have contributed to the reorganization of the relationship between market participants or to the transformation of concentration within product categories, such as the increase in the proportion of own-brand products.

The GVH recently announced that they are investigating the actors of the food retail market and their pricing practices, paying special attention to substitutes for products subject to official price caps, such as dairy products.
According to the latest data from KSH, the consumer price of milk in December rose by 52 percent, and that of dairy products by 79.2 percent, compared to December of the previous year. In the last month of the year, food prices increased by 44.8 percent year-on-year.

The GVH has one month to prepare the draft of the report, but in justified cases it can be extended twice, by a maximum of one month each. The results of the investigation will be summarized in a report – they wrote.