The reduction in VAT on food that came into effect last January to combat the escalation of inflation in the shopping cart has not yet produced the desired results. Four out of ten products affected by the cut have raised their prices on supermarket shelves in April compared to what they were on December 30, according to a complaint this Friday by the consumer organization Facua, which since then has been monitoring the evolution on a monthly basis. of almost 1,000 food prices in eight distribution chains.
The increase in cost is increasing, since in February the prices of one in five foods had risen and in March, one in three, despite the fact that the general average inflation has been collapsing in these months after exceeding 10% in summer.
Given these facts, Facua is going to expand the complaints that it already filed in January, February and March before the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), which to date continues without giving any type of response. The complaints will once again be directed against all the chains being monitored: Alcampo, Aldi, Carrefour, Dia, Eroski, Lidl, Hipercor and Mercadona.
Specifically, among the 991 products analyzed, Facua has detected price increases in 416, which represents 42%. The biggest rises have been registered in the last month –as usual– in fruits or vegetables. Thus, onions, carrots and iceberg lettuce have become very expensive in practically all supermarkets. But there have also been increases in olive oil, milk and dairy, as well as rice, pasta and legumes. Eggs, flour and breads are not spared either.
Aldi in the lead
The greatest number of anomalies has been detected in Aldi, where 29 of the total of 57 prices analyzed (50.8%) have become more expensive, but Carrefour follows closely, with 82 more expensive products than on December 30 on a sample of 167 prices (49.1%).
Alcampo, for its part, has increased 62 of the 133 prices analyzed (46.6%), while Hipercor has done so in 77 of the 166 foods collected in this study (46.3%). For its part, Lidl has made 25 products more expensive out of a total of 56 (44.6%), while Dia has raised 56 items out of the 139 considered (40.2%).
The two chains where the lowest percentage of price increases have been registered are Eroski, with 42 products out of a total of 129 collected (32.5%), and Mercadona, with 43 increases among the 144 prices registered (29.8% ).