Turnaround in shopping: This is how the online price monitoring system will work in Hungary

The government is phasing out the food price freeze from 1 August because it is forecasting that inflation could fall to 15 percent by August. As we previously reported, an online price monitoring system will be introduced from 1 July. Here is how it will work.

Food price caps to be abolished in a month

With the end of the food price caps on 1 August, the government expects the online price monitoring system and mandatory shop promotions to ensure that food prices will not go down even after the measure is lifted, napi.hu writes. As we reported on Thursday, Gergely Gulyás, the PM’s chief of staff, announced at the Cabinet Briefing that the government will abolish the food price caps from 1 August. According to their forecast, inflation is expected to fall to 15 percent by August.

Based on the Hungarian Gazette, Index published a summary of how the online price monitoring system will work from 1 July. They also shared which products will be covered by the measure.

In-store promotions and online price monitoring system

In parallel with the phasing out of the price freeze, the mandatory in-store promotions will be increased from 10 to 15 percent. The measure will also cover products that were previously available at the official price. According to Gergely Gulyás, the basis for the promotional price will be the gross purchase price. The government would thus avoid a brutal price increase for products previously subject to a price freeze.

The price monitoring system concerns the following goods:

various types of milk, sour cream (tejföl), yogurt, cottage cheese (túró), cheese, margarine, butter, egg, pork leg, whole chicken, chicken breast fillet, chicken leg, turkey breast fillet, lard, sausage, salami, various cold cuts, various fruits and vegetables, types of bread, types of pasta, wheat flour, sugar, cooking oil.

The Regulation in the Gazette specifies the following:

• the gross selling price for each product category, which may be a box price, a unit price or a packet price;
• the name of the food product group included in the price monitoring system;
• other data necessary for the identification of the product;
• and the data allowing the precise identification of the products to be recorded in the price monitoring system.

The trader’s obligations

The trader shall provide data for each product category within each of their outlets for each product which they market and which corresponds to the description and presentation set out in the Annex.

When providing the data, the trader shall indicate the daily price of the product by indicating the unit price and the price by type of selling price for the product. In addition to the daily price, the trader must indicate the previous price of the product by specifying the previous unit price of the product and the previous price by type of selling price of the product, the relevant regulation states.