Price comparison will become more transparent: Minister wants to involve all retailers 0 8

He pointed out that currently the tool only includes data from the three largest retailers, and the next step is to involve all other grocery store chains.

"The only question is willingness — if there is a desire to provide this data and show price transparency, we can include them in the tool," said the minister, adding that a suitable mechanism has been found to obtain data from other chains, if they, of course, wish to provide it themselves.

At the same time, Valainis indicated that changes in the regulatory framework are also possible.

"We can expand the regulation by amending the Cabinet of Ministers' decree and covering a broader range," he noted.

As previously reported, on August 12 of this year, the government decided that individual retailers must provide information to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) for comparing consumer prices and monitoring food prices.

The regulation mandates — at the request of the CSB and in the manner established by the Cabinet of Ministers — that data be provided by those food retailers whose net turnover in the last financial year exceeded 400 million euros. Other retailers may provide data on a voluntary basis — this is not an obligation.

According to data from Firmas.lv, in the last financial year, the following had a turnover of more than 400 million euros: Rimi Latvia — 1.126 billion euros, Maxima Latvija — 1.102 billion euros, and Lidl Latvija — 460.87 million euros.

Developers of the price comparison tool have been receiving data from the CSB since December 1. Currently, the CSB has received cooperation requests from the platforms Lēta pārtika and Cenu depo, but the Ministry of Economics reported in early December that another similar tool is being developed.

The CSB receives two types of data from retail chains: – operational data on key food products, which chains submit every morning by 8:00 through a secure data exchange channel; – as well as data on electronic transactions for the previous week (so-called scanner data) at least once a week.

Every day, retailers must provide information on the following products: white bread, rye bread, sweet bread, pasteurized milk, cheese, cottage cheese, butter, sour cream, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, onions, carrots, garlic, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, white cabbage, cauliflower, leafy salads, pumpkin, zucchini, potatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries, red and black currants, raspberries, pork, minced pork, poultry meat, minced poultry meat, beef, veal, lamb, fresh and chilled sea and freshwater fish, wheat flour, whole grain flour, buckwheat, chicken eggs, olive, rapeseed, and sunflower oil.

On May 27 of this year, Viktor Valainis, Executive Director of the Latvian Association of Food Traders Noris Kruzitis, Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Janis Endzins, Head of the Latvian Dairy Farmers Union Janis Sholks, Chairperson of the Board of the Latvian Federation of Food Enterprises Inara Shure, Chairman of the Council of the Council for Cooperation of Agricultural Organizations Guntis Gutmanis, Chairman of the Board of the Zemnieku saeima society Juris Lazdins, Director of the Consumer Rights Protection Center Zaiga Liepina, and other partners signed a memorandum to reduce food prices.

The goal of the Ministry of Economics is to achieve a 20% reduction in prices for key food categories and to increase the share of Latvian products in stores.

The memorandum provides for the introduction of a low-price food basket, a price comparison tool, and an increase in the share of local products in retail chains.

The creation of a low-price food basket implies that in each of the ten categories there must be at least one product at the lowest price, and it must be replaced with another product from the same category at certain regular intervals. Such baskets were introduced by the largest retail chains in June of this year.