The fast-moving consumer goods market remains high and inflation seeps into Portuguese pockets. In the first ten months of the year alone, 9.811 million euros have been spent in hypermarkets and supermarkets, almost 800 million more than in the same period last year. Not because families buy more, but because products are more expensive.
The data comes from NielsenIQ’s Scantrends and shows that since the beginning of March, home purchase spending has not stopped growing, deteriorating by 10.4 percentage points, with a special emphasis on the period from the end of May. In other words, they went from a year-over-year increase of 3.8% in May to 14.2% in October.
While the percentage growth is highest in non-alcoholic beverages (+14%), it is in spending on groceries and dairy products (+11% in both categories) that the price increase weighs the most on the wallets of the Portuguese, as treats the product classes with more relevance in the shopping cart.
Groceries, which accounted for 39.1% of the supermarket bill last year, already weigh 39.8%. Dairy products increased from 16.8% to 17.2%. This means that families will spend 3905 million euros on groceries alone this year, compared to 3528 million euros in the same period last year. For dairy products there were 1687.5 million, 171.5 million more than last year.
Unsurprisingly, NielsenIQ data shows a 2.4 percentage point growth in purchases of distribution and premium brands, the so-called white brands, which are already worth 39.5% of the total grocery bill. In the food segment, this trend is even more pronounced, with white label products reaching a total weight of 46.3%.
“There are already almost three percentage points that have changed hands. We are talking about about 500 to 700 million euros that have passed from the manufacturer’s brands to the distribution brands since the beginning of the year,” emphasizes the director general of Centromarca , the Portuguese association of branded product companies.
Pedro Pimentel foresees a “very difficult” start to the year 2023, accentuating the loss of purchasing power of the Portuguese. “The first few months will certainly be complicated, not least because of the efforts families are now making [com a aproximação do Natal] it always has its repercussions in the following months. January and February will be bad months,” he predicts.
Meanwhile, the Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) remains alert to this market segment, having announced yesterday that it has opened 10 criminal proceedings for price speculation in supermarkets and hypermarkets. Cereals, canned goods, fruit, water and other foods, among others, were identified, according to the statement, “with price fluctuations of up to 30% from the posted price”.
The inspection of 270 operators also led to the initiation of 24 administrative infringement proceedings, focusing on, among other things, “practice of misleading commercial actions and disrespect of price poster rules”.
Ilídia Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
