Abusive store prices?
Setback for price monitors after organic margin criticism
Price monitor Stefan Meierhans has encountered new resistance with his investigation into allegedly abusive retail prices for organic food. A proposal for a voluntary limit was unsuccessful.
Published: 5 minutes ago
The price monitor’s investigation had already made headlines before Christmas because the publication that was apparently planned at the time was prevented. Migros, which is said to be behind it, rejected the accusation of excessive margins at the time.
Now the price watchdog published its report on the margins for organic products on Friday. However, Meierhans notes that this interim report raised a number of unanswered questions. In order to answer these, the price monitor will keep the topic under constant observation and follow it up.
In the course of its analysis, the price monitor also presented selected retailers with a proposal for a voluntary commitment regarding the structure of the organic margins “despite the noticeable resistance of certain companies”.
margins on organic products
Since consumers would accept an organic markup of between 10 and 30 percent on average, he suggested that absolutely no higher margins should be charged as long as the organic markup percentage is more than 20 percent.
Higher net margins for organic products would therefore only be permissible as long as they were no more than 20 percent more expensive than their corresponding conventional product. Regrettably, the invited companies are not willing to make this promise, which involves price reductions, according to the price monitor.
The price watchdog sees a comparison of the margins of organic products in the Netherlands as an indication that a less competitive environment in Switzerland contributes to organic products becoming more expensive because they have to bear an extra high margin.
Meierhans now raises the question of whether a situation with collective market dominance can be assumed in the Swiss retail trade, as can also be observed in a similar way in New Zealand. As a result, the question arises as to whether Switzerland needs regulation like that in New Zealand, in order to prevent excessively high margins, especially in the organic sector.
(SDA)