Fair Prices: government fines over 700 non-compliant supermarkets and food companies

The Commerce Secretariat imposed fines of AR$ 806.4 million (US$ 4.17 million at the official rate) on 769 food companies and supermarkets due to non-compliance with the “Fair Prices” price agreement.

Secretariat head  Matías Tombolini said in an interview with Radio 10 that missing products and signs, use of the program’s signs in products that are not part of Fair Prices, and duplicated tags were among the detected violations.

“This is a further step in the idea that we cannot get prices under control and build predictability if we allow abuses to happen,” Tombolini said. 

According to the Secretary, the fined supermarkets were Día, Carrefour and those from the Cencosud Group (Disco, Vea, and Jumbo). Wholesaler Maxiconsumo and food companies Cabrales and Nestlé were also fined. After the infraction reports are issued, companies are given a chance to respond. If their observations are not taken into consideration, the fine is made effective.

Tombolini also said that a branch of the Jumbo chain in San Martín, Buenos Aires, was shut down after a joint operation by the Commerce Secretariat and San Martín Municipality’s Consumer’s Defense Undersecretariat. He shared a video of the operation on social media.

“We received five alerts in a short period of time. This indicates a severe product shortfall that we later verified,” Tombolini said. In that case, the supermarket did not have stock for 32 products.

Fair Prices is a price agreement program the Economy Ministry launched on November 11. In its current iteration, prices  of 2000 products are frozen and 30,000 companies are limited to marking up prices by 3.2% a month.

The deal includes consumer goods such as food, cleaning and hygiene products, clothes, cell phones and appliances. Companies’ adherence to the program is voluntary, but the government will facilitate access to US dollars at the official rate for imports for participants.

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