The prices in the stores can be reduced by 20% – 30% of some of the products, but not at the expense of the manufacturer, said the Acting Minister of Agriculture Yavor Gechev in the program “120 minutes” on bTV.
In the case of cheese – a package of 400 g, vacuum-sealed, the price difference in the store network is 50% higher, he gave an example.
“The structure in Bulgarian stores is unlike any other, there are anomalies throughout the system. This time, many of the market players overdid it and didn’t understand that they overdid it. The topic is so strong that it won’t die down,” said the Minister of Agriculture .
“You can say it’s speculation, but I don’t find such a legal concept. That’s why one of the things we found is that we don’t have enough legislation. We don’t have enough mechanisms of the state to implement,” he pointed out.
Minister Yavor Gechev also gave an example with the price of fresh milk. “Fresh milk is bought for one lev, in small companies even less. It is processed, collected from the dairies, there is some added value, because there is packaging, pasteurization, transport. It is delivered to the store network for less than two levs – at prices from BGN 1.60 to BGN 1.80. At the counter, it is BGN 3.60 to BGN 3.80,” he explained.
Even if we give money, in practice it does not go to the farmers, said Minister Yavor Gechev. In his words, the entire chain of production is neither solidary nor correct.
“We are in the field as long as it is necessary. The state must have mechanisms, the prices in the store network can be lowered by 20% – 30% of some of the products, but not at the expense of the producer,” said the Minister of Agriculture.
He noted that requests were made by various supply chains to manufacturers to lower prices by 15%. The problems we find are with the end users – the stores, he explained.
According to Gechev, the initial increase in food prices in the commercial network coincided with the beginning of the war in Ukraine, but after that they continued to rise and did not fall.
According to the Minister of Agriculture, the first thing that needs to be done is to have traceability along the whole chain in the wholesale trade.
