A consumer expert has said there is no excuse as to why retailers are continuing to charge increased prices - but said it will take one leading supermarket to drop costs before they all follow suit.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has been called on by the Labour Party to investigate claims of ‘price gouging’ at Irish supermarket chains as production costs continue to fall.
Irish Times Consumer Affairs Correspondent Conor Pope told Newstalk Breakfast that although there is no “definitive proof” that supermarkets are price gouging, there are many questions being raised about large chains.
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He said: “An awful lot of the excuses and an awful lot of the reasons they gave 12 months ago for pushing prices higher and higher and higher are now gone.
“The question that we have to ask is not whether or not they're making excess profits – the question is why the prices aren't coming down today to reflect the changing circumstances in 2023 compared to 2022”.
Mr. Pope went on to say that it would seem supermarkets are failing to follow other services in reducing their prices as the cost-of-living crisis begins to subside.
“The average price of a litre of petrol is €1.59. It's €1.51 for an average of three litre of diesel,” he explained.
“Compare that to the height of the crisis, when everyone was talking about a litre of fuel climbing above €2”.
He said supermarket energy bills are also not justified when it comes to increasing food prices anymore.
“I'm not privy to how much they pay for the energy - but I do know that the cost of energy in the wholesale markets is today around half what it was at the height of the crisis,” he said.
“I would imagine that a big retailer like Tesco [or] Dunnes have pretty robust deals in place with their energy suppliers.
“So, the question then is when are we going to see the benefits of the falling input costs?
“Somebody will move”.
Mr. Pope said the likelihood is that one supermarket chain will drop its prices and others will simply follow.
“If you take a price for a tin of beans, let's say one retailer is charging €1.20 and all the retailers then start charging €1.20.
“If a retailer starts charging €1.10, all of them will start charging €1.10.”
“That's not a cartel - that's just how retailing works. They all follow each other very closely.”
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