Agriculture and suppliers have “no chance” against the buyers of the retail groups. “These are partly extortionate conditions. Those who resist will be delisted. This is not fair competition, these are unfair practices,” says Köstinger in the current issue of the news magazine “profil”.
There would be a disproportion between producer prices and consumer prices. “If prices for consumers rise, retailers skim off this margin and don’t pass it on to farmers. If consumers pay less, it doesn’t go to retailers, but farmers get correspondingly less.”
“Price war every single day”
Consumers would be deceived by the trade, according to Köstinger: “The price war takes place every single day on the shelf. The trade lures customers with cheap eggs or cheap milk. What the chains lose there, they get back with surcharges on other products. “
“A frightening amount of market power”
Bauernbund President Georg Strasser confirmed the minister’s criticism. “The trading giants have a frightening amount of market power. They are therefore jointly responsible for the structural change in agriculture. Every day around 10 companies close their farm gates forever.” The “superior power of retailers in the food retail sector” goes so far that producers no longer dare to open their mouths in the event of obvious misconduct because they are afraid of being delisted, Strasser, member of the National Council of the Austrian People’s Party, confirmed in a broadcast and called for legal protection small producers from unfair trading practices.
