Supermarket chain Colruyt is limiting the number of items of a series of basic products to ten per customer. Prices for salt, sugar and flour have tumbled. Stores like night shops that sell Colruyt products on to their own customers are thought to be hoarding goods now prices are low.
Flour, sugar and salt of Colruyt’s own brand “Everyday” are being limited to ten items per customer. Frozen chips are being limited to 4 packs a customer.
Wholesale prices of several basics have fallen of late. Production costs for such items are low meaning the price fall is immediately noticeable.
Els Breugelmans, retail expert and marketing professor at Leuven University warns this doesn’t mean we’ll notice an across-the-board price fall for food products: “Energy and wage costs and the use of a combination of different raw materials mean we won’t immediately notice a general drop in food prices”.
Earlier restrictions on consumers during the pandemic led to more people heading to the supermarket just to make sure they didn’t run out of certain basics. Breugelmans believes the present move could encourage a similar response. “The restriction underlines the low prices. People won’t head for the store out of fear they will run out, but in order to take advantage of low prices”.
The supermarket chain insists the measure is being taken to deal with stores who sell on Colruyt products because of the current low prices and not to hit regular customers.