The National Organization of Pensioners (PRO) has conducted its food price survey since the early 1990s with the intention of comparing food prices between different stores.
In connection with last fall's investigation, the trade magazine Dagligvarunytt first revealed that Willys deliberately lowered the prices of a number of goods ahead of the investigation, then TV4's "Kalla fakta" was able to show that several ICA retailers had also manipulated their prices.
Now that the survey is being presented, PRO has been forced to make changes.
"We have seen that prices have differed a lot from normal prices; sometimes it's a single item, other times many items. There are about 50 stores that we have removed after we saw strange price deviations," says Ola Nilsson, an expert at PRO.
Caviar under the microscope
These involved goods that were included in previous years. An example is caviar, where certain stores that cheated reduced prices by just over 50 percent for a period in order to achieve better results in the survey.
"What we saw is that it's the supermarkets doing this. They're the ones with the muscle; the small ones are busy anyway," says Ola Nilsson.
At the same time, PRO's survey has previously been criticized by the industry as unfair and its methodology has been questioned. Åsa Lindestam, PRO's chairwoman, responds:
"From our side, there are no such concerns at all. Our pensioners go out to a large number of stores and record the prices on the spot, so we don't cheat. We can't take responsibility for the store owners," she says.
Make adjustments
However, PRO sees reason to make further adjustments for next year, for example changing the time of year from the traditional autumn.
"We have received so many suggestions on what more we can do, they are so angry," says Lindestam about member reactions and how to prevent future cheating.
Lidl had the lowest average price among the smaller stores. At the same time, Willys was the cheapest among the larger stores, though only two kronor cheaper than ICA Maxi supermarket. Geographically, Kronoberg County was the cheapest, followed by Skaraborg, while Stockholm was the most expensive.
Tobias Österberg/TT
Facts: PRO's grocery bag
TT
PRO has conducted the survey since 1991. The survey is conducted by members who record the prices of the food items included in the lunch box. The contents are adjusted from year to year.
After the inspection, the inspectors ask retailers to sign a protocol confirming that the prices are correct, a form of quality seal. This year, 57 percent of the stores signed the protocol.
The average price this year was SEK 1,182.77. The survey distinguishes between large and small stores.
In the large stores, the average price was SEK 1,106.58 and in the small stores, SEK 1,205.19.
The cheapest food bag in the survey cost SEK 1,037.74, the most expensive SEK 1,358.60.
