The Government is introducing mandatory promotions

(Photo: Pixabay)

To this end, the Government is constantly introducing new tools, in addition to the 20 measures previously taken, a joint online price monitoring system with the Economic Competition Office, and a database with the consumer protection authority to monitor and present the price changes of products in a targeted manner in order to increase competition. In addition, it conducts professional discussions with the leaders of the most important product councils in order to accurately explore the processes behind the price changes of individual food raw materials.

The Government’s measures are working, inflation peaked in January, and since then it has started to decline continuously and in a trend-like fashion

However, the pace of the reduction in inflation is not yet breakthrough. For this very reason, at its last meeting – in addition to extending the food price freeze until June 30, 2023 – based on Greek and French examples, the Government decided to introduce a new anti-inflation tool: it obliges retail stores with significant income to announce regular promotions, and in order to effectively implement this, the following principle made decisions.

This is how you should act

According to the planned regulation, the most important foodstuffs will be classified into 20 product categories (e.g. poultry, cheese, bread, pastries, vegetables, fruit) in order to cover a sufficiently wide range of products with the possibility of discounted purchases. The affected retail stores must sell one freely chosen product from each designated product category at a price at least 10 percent lower than the lowest price experienced in the 30 days prior to the mandatory price reduction. Promotions must be held on a weekly basis, which cannot apply to products with price caps. Based on the regulations, the products on sale in the relevant retail stores may differ in a given week, and the range of products in a given retail unit may also change weekly. This is extremely important in order to maintain competition.

The list of the current eligible goods must be clearly displayed at the entrance of the stores and in the promotional newspapers
Based on this, every week customers will have a discount grocery basket of 20 products available in the given store, which they can buy much cheaper than the previous month.

Mandatory promotions will be introduced by June 1, 2023 at the latest

The Government appointed the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Agriculture to develop the detailed rules. For the sake of customers, the Government expects from the new measure that overpricing and speculation can be stopped by reducing prices and increasing the competitive situation, so that sanctioned inflation can be further reduced in the near future. As before, both consumer protection and the Economic Competition Authority will carry out continuous and strict inspections.

MTI