The question about food prices is important to everyone, society in general and everyone who pays for purchases in stores, LETA was told by Board Chairman of LLC Rimi Latvia Valdis Turlais.
He said the Latvian government needs to deepen its understanding or at least try to understand if there is something that can be done with price reduction, what needs to be done and what were the causes for all this, instead of pointing fingers at retailers.
Turlais emphasized the need to delve deeper into the entire food supply and marketing chain, which includes producers, growers, transporters, custodians, distributors, marketing, and others. “Retailers do not swap prices just for the hell of it,” stressed Turlais.
“When the situation in the economy is slightly more complicated and the elections are not far away, then they resort to “bad” retailers and promise the people that they will fix everything right away,” Turlais said about politicians’ position.
He said he is confused why the Ministry of Economics did not speak of price reduction when inflation was just starting to go up and was over 20%. “Inflation has been on a normal level for a long time,” he stressed.
Turlais emphasized that “Rimi” did not raise prices in 2023, but mostly they were raised by manufacturers and suppliers, for objective reasons – due to the increase in energy resources and raw materials. He also pointed out that food inflation in Latvia last year was relatively low or 2.5%, excluding alcohol and tobacco, but only two manufacturers approached Rimi from about 500 suppliers with price reductions.
Commenting on the conclusions of the Competition Council that food produced in Latvia is priced significantly more expensive than imported products, Turlais said that this conclusion is false.
“The data is ‘put in a single bag’ and conclusions are drawn,” said Turlais, adding that finding one supplier with one import product with a lower markup, and another completely with the same local product with a higher markup and declaring that everyone on the market is doing so is not right.
The Chairman of Rimi pointed out that there are retailers in Latvia who work with much lower costs and bring much more products from abroad, but there are also those who work with domestic products. “If we start comparing the prices of these retailers, then it’s incorrect,” Turlais said.
In “Rimi” stores, you can find goods with negative markup, with medium markup and high, Turlais told LETA in an interview, adding that the total profit of retailers is not looked at – how much they earn and when each merchant takes advantage of them.