Cut-price fresh food ban ‘should be upheld’

THE ban preventing supermarkets and independent stores from selling cut-price fresh produce should be upheld, a report urged yesterday.

With Irish consumers paying between 5%-15% more for their groceries, an Oireachtas committee recommended the order barring below cost sales should be maintained.

The Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business said it was the cost of running a business which needed to be addressed.

The committee called on the Government to take action and said lessons could be learned from the way legislation was brought in to improve competition in the insurance industry last year.

Deputy Brendan Howlin said positive steps had to be taken to help reduce overheads in order to protect small local businesses.

“There are other significant costs, for example, waste management that need to be addressed,” he said.

The committee revealed it had received reports that transport costs were up to 28% higher in Ireland than in Britain. It claimed some groups noted waste disposal charges were 450% higher than in Britain, and rent levels 35% higher.

Committee chairman Deputy Donie Cassidy said the fact that Ireland was an island economy, with 90% of goods brought in, meant costs were being pushed up. “But we want to see a fair playing pitch,” Mr Cassidy said.

The report recommended no change in the cap on the size of supermarkets and said ministers should not be allowed to interfere. “We certainly do not want to see the centre of our larger towns turned into wildernesses,” Mr Cassidy said.

The committee said the Government should introduce primary legislation for any change to retail planning regulations.

Deputy Phil Hogan said the committee had no solid proof that lower prices could be sustained by lifting the ban on cut-price sales.

“If we do find evidence that lower prices can be sustained on a long-term basis by the removal of the grocery order then we will reassess it,” he said.

Mr Hogan said the Competition Authority had so far failed to provide any information on sustainable low prices.

In its interim report on the impact of grocery multiples and effect on customers, the committee called for comprehensive quarterly surveys on shopping basket to be carried out. It also recommended that companies operating in the grocery sector should be required to publish turnover and profit figures.

Food labelling should show where the product was produced and processed, the committee said.

The report also said it was better to have many small stores operating throughout the country than a smaller number of very large ones.