The supermarkets attached to Fair Prices They began this Monday to install the corresponding signage and it is expected that all those who are part of the program will do so in the coming days.
According to what was reported to Télam by sources from the Ministry of Commerce, some of the adhered chains already have in their gondolas the circular official signs with a blue background and white lettersadvertising the products offered by the program that was announced on Friday, November 11 by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa.
In this regard, from the supermarket sector they indicated to Télam that the start time of the placement of the signs “depends on each company” and that in the course of this week it is expected that more branches of the participating chains will be added throughout the country.
On Friday, November 18, the Ministry of Economy approved the signage of the Fair Prices program with its corresponding image and technical description, through provision 1/2022 of the Undersecretary of Policies for the Internal Market published in the Official Gazette.
As indicated in the standard, “the Fair Prices signage must be used by all companies covered by this measure in their brochures, web pages, digital platforms or any other material or means of dissemination related to their respective business, in which mention is made of the aforementioned program or of the products incorporated into it, respecting the technical description”.
In addition, it specified that, “in order to distinguish the products that are part of the Fair Prices, the companies that have signed agreements within the framework of the program must add, in each space destined for their exhibition, signage, respecting the technical descriptions “.
He also stressed that “The signage must always be displayed in a clear, precise, complete and totally visible way”.
Precios Justos will absorb its predecessor Precios Cuidados program establishes the pricing of nearly 2,000 basic necessities from November to February, and a maximum increase of 4% for another 30,000 items.
The Secretary of Commerce, Matias Tomboliniassured that the program “will help to order the dynamics in a calmer path”, and stressed that it contains a series of points regarding the supply, scope and penalties that differentiate it from the previous agreements.
Tombolini differentiated Precios Justos from previous price agreements and one of the points that he highlighted is the variety of products included, covering 102 mass consumption companies, as well as supermarkets’ own brands, with the goal of “continuing to incorporate products and companies in the coming weeks”.
“There is not, I would say, any big brand that is out of the deal, and this of course gives it a different volume than previous deals.”he assured.
In the same way, he kicked off its scope, “reaching today 18 supermarket and hypermarket chains with more than 2,200 points of sale, and 25 chains in the interior of the country that in turn have 150 more points of sale.”
As a novelty, the program incorporates the wholesale chains that – Tombolini pointed out – “until today they were outside the previous price programs” and add “200 points of sale”.
In these mouths, “in most cases”, the price of the program is lower than that of the supermarkets.
However, he clarified that local businesses and warehouses -which are normally supplied by wholesalers- “they have a higher price level than the supermarket”, and that this has to do “with the economic structure of marketing” of the country, a distortion that clarified that it will not be corrected with a price program.
For his part, he stressed that Fair Prices were not planned in a vacuum, but that a series of “prior measures” were carried out from the Secretariat.
Among them is the establishment of regulations regarding the control of labels through which companies that release products with “very similar characteristics” to others already existing in their portfolios, must go through the Secretariat to request authorization.
In the same way, the penalties have been toughened, in cases of breaches of supply, prices, or signaling in the price agreement by the producing companies or by the distributors and as a novelty the inspection “for the first time” will be ” decentralized”, which will allow municipalities “the possibility of verifying compliance”.
