Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Methods of price stabilization for food stuff: Crimean know-how
Past week the Republican Consumers Protection Committee of AR Crimea carried out an inspection of Simferopol markets, according to the information provided by Market Information Specialist of Crimean office, Agricultural Marketing Project.
One of the interesting moments noted by inspectors was the concealed price increase for food stuff. It is done this way: the weight of the packed goods becomes lesser, and the price for a parcel remains on the same level. So the price does not go up - it is only the quantity of goods you can buy for this price that becomes lesser; in principle that is the same thing. Moreover, this method of "price stabilization" does not arise strong discontent among consumers cause in major cases they do not notice this trick. Besides it let the regional governmental bodies report to the main authorities about food stuff price stabilization, however in reality the prices continue to grow.
Of course, this method of real price understatement was not discovered by the Crimeans. Past year, for example, when the government tried to constrain bread price growth by administrative methods, the average weight of a loaf of bread lessened in many regions. This way the bread production enterprises tried to avoid too large losses, and the regional authorities were able to report about the successful price constraining.