Prices of food products “grow” between shelf and box in large Portuguese hypermarket chains, which “frequently” change the price, making them more expensive: the accusation came from Pedro Portugal Gaspar, Inspector General of ASAE (Autoridade of Food and Economic Security), This wed.

“And this deserves some reflection mainly because the situations occur in large economic groups, which means that this deviation should not be seen as a single action, but rather multiplied by the daily cash flow of the product,” the responsible person charged, confirming that the ASAE had inspected 562 companies Economic and opened 26 criminal cases to practice price speculation affecting only food products, such as pasta, cereals, milk, eggs, meat and tuna.

There were price differences of up to 65.5% in pasta sales – and the increase can be hard to detect: because the cart can be full and not check that the bill is a few cents more expensive than it should be or because the increase can be masked by inflation.

“The perception is that the consumer does not make this crossing in detail. Sometimes it is a dime, but this deviation is relevant when it reaches a threshold of about 70%,” says Pedro Paulo Gaspar. “I can’t say it’s intentional, but, I mean, it’s a relatively objective situation, so you have to find some kind of justification here and draw some conclusions about this, because it gets repeated on top of that.”

Pedro Portugal Gaspar stressed: “This could be negligence, but then the mistakes had to be corrected so that they would not be repeated again, otherwise this is a kind of practice that must be radically opposed.”

Distribution companies have seen their revenues and profits increase – among the two largest national supermarket chains (Modelo / Continente and Pingo Doce), revenue between January and September exceeded €8.4 billion, with Jerónimo Martins, owner of Pingo Doce, reporting more than €120 million in profit. Sonae, which is responsible for Continente stores, generated 39 million euros more than in 2019.