21/07/2023
From today's Digame: Supermarkets are pocketing the IVA savings that was supposed to provide relief to consumers:
- Facua has made a formal complaint against large store chains after detecting price increases in more than 400 products, notably fruit, vegetables and olive oil after the IVA sales tax rebate came into effect.
- In June, food prices in Spain closed with a rise of 10.3%, according to data from the national statistics institute (INE) which is still very high but represents a significant drop on the 16.5% seen in February and March.
- The government argues that the IVA (Spanish sales tax) rebate on staple foods, is containing the level of food inflation that has been registered for the last three months. However, behind this containment there are foods affected by the rebate that continue to rise in price on the shelves of large supermarket chains.
- Facua has announced that it is going to pass the complaints to the Spain's National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) that it has already filed in previous months against the eight large supermarket chains (Alcampo, Aldi, Carrefour, Dia, Eroski, Lidl, Hipercor and Mercadona) where it has found irregularities.
- In July, the highest number of price anomalies were found at Aldi, where 60% of the reduced IVA products analysed were more expensive than before the measure. This was followed by Carrefour and Alcampo, while Lidl and Mercadona were the two chains where the fewest irregularities were found, 43% and 33% respectively. Full article: https://www.surinenglish.com/spain/consumer-group-reports-eight-supermarket-chains-spain-20230719120705-nt.html