The manager also criticizes the “food summit” initiated by the government in May. “We worked hard while the government organized show summits,” said the head of the second largest grocer in Austria on Tuesday in the business journalists’ club.
Since the beginning of the year, the prices of 450 articles have been reduced and own brands, especially the discount brand “clever”, have been expanded. The company has tightened up campaigns and discounts, and negotiations are also taking place with suppliers. “Of course, when the industry raises prices, prices go up. Conversely, we pass on price cuts,” said Haraszti.
Double digit increase
In May, inflation slowed down to 9.0 percent, while food prices were on average 12.3 percent higher than in the previous year. Although groceries rose somewhat less sharply than in the previous month, the inflation rates here were still in the double digits.
As early as October last year, the Federal Competition Authority (BWB) launched an industry study for the food sector, which is still ongoing.
The authority is currently contacting several price comparison platforms in order to gain a more detailed insight into the market conditions. Economics Minister Martin Kocher (ÖVP) wants to present a price comparison database by autumn in order to give consumers a better perspective when shopping.
42 new openings this year
The first half of the year was difficult for the Rewe Group in Austria, which includes the supermarket chains Billa, Billa Plus, Penny and Adeg and the drugstore chain Bipa, but he was relatively satisfied with the sales development, said Haraszti. The retailer is planning 26 new openings at Billa this year, and there should be 42 across all tracks. In total, Rewe is investing 460 million euros in stores, IT and logistics in Germany this year.
ePaper
Read e-paper now!
Read the daily updated ePaper edition of the OÖNachrichten – now flip through it digitally!
to the epaper
info By clicking on the icon you add the keyword to your topics.
info Click on the icon to open your “my topics” page. You have saved from 15 tags and need to remove tags.
info Click on the icon to remove the keyword from your topics.
Add the theme to your themes.