National Consumer Agency- Grocery Prices

Sunny

Registered User
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4,571
The retailers have a point. Why is the Agency still around? (I ssume the head of it is on a six figure salary)

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Even when prices were a lot higher than they are now, all they came up with as advice was to shop around.
 
(I assume the head of it is on a six figure salary)

€186,190 plus €3357 expenses in 2009, to tell us we need a new supermarket chain to come in and sell at lower prices.
Why would they do that? If a new chain were to come in they'd sell at the same prices.
 
€186,190 plus €3357 expenses in 2009, to tell us we need a new supermarket chain to come in and sell at lower prices.

Are you serious? I thought maybe just over 100k which was bad enough!
 
because they are not stupid and know they will get away with it. Why do tescos and dunnes charge exactly the same price for nearly every item especially the branded ones?
 
Because they have a very similar cost base and are arch rivals.

How come Aldi/Lidl don't?
 
I assumed Noah was refering to brands such as Kellogs corn flakes, Brennans bread, Roma pasta sauces etc, when he said "especially the branded products" This is where there was virtually no difference between the big supermarkets. Don't Lidl/Aldi do their own versions of these type of products?
In fairness to Aldi/Lidl, they forced down the prices of some of the own-brand products in Tescos.
 
Lidl/Aldi now do Heinz beans, Chef ketchup, Coca Cola, Red Bull, Oxo cubes, HP sauces etc... They have far more popular 'branded' products than they used to. And the branded stuff is cheaper than Tescos/Dunnes.
 
The study is just plain wrong, well it's scope and conclusions are at least. First a 14% decrease is pretty significant, considering other costs wouldn't have dropped at the same rate or at all in that period. Second, do we really need a huge ASDA? Well thanks to the NCA, where they completely ignored independent grocers, we'll just close more of them down making it even more comfortable for the big chains and even less competition.

An example close to home for me is JCs supermarket, it does very well, always busy and will have branded goods much cheaper than the major stores (it has a Dunnes, Superquinn and Tescos in the same catchment area). So it's fair to not count them in the survey, but introduce a new player which is likely to put them under more strain. Nice one NCA.

Limiting the scope to branded goods ignores the most significant shift (largely thanks to Lidl and Aldi again not included in the report) in that people have moved away from branded goods to own products. That's where the real cuts and drop in prices are and that's what people are buying.

They're creating an issue when there isn't one. I can only speak from my own experience, but our average shopping bill of €150 per week is now below €100 without any major sacrifices. That's a saving of €2,500 a year just from the supermarkets competing.

But it's handy that the conclusions justifies the NCA's existence. It's handy that a very limited, unreal shopping scenario makes it look like the NCA are doing sterling work.
 

+1 A champion for the consumer who earns near 200K per annum, give me a break!
 
But it's handy that the conclusions justifies the NCA's existence. It's handy that a very limited, unreal shopping scenario makes it look like the NCA are doing sterling work.
That's what all these agencies are busying themselves doing - getting out useless reports to make it look like they are doing something when in reality they are a complete waste of money at best.
 

Ah Latrade, grew up around the corner from it. I still go back just to see what bargains they have left in the aisles this time!
 
In fairness, you'd expect any enterprise with the name "JC's" to be of a more charitable disposition.