From the online comments

Push to reduce prices  of dozens of grocery products by up to 15%

Operators feel under pressure to agree to changes, mull inflating prices of other items

As long as key staples remain cheap, people should be able to sidestep the threatened increases in other items. For example, as long as chicken, breadcrumbs and oil are price-controlled, people can make their own chicken nuggets and insulate themselves from a price increase in ready-made frozen nuggets.

I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for whoever has been gouging consumers for years. For example, a seven-can star-shaped package of small tuna cans was priced €11 in the Maltese supermarket I frequent around March 2023 but we bought the same thing in a supermarket in Sicily for under €7. Last I checked, the price in Malta had gone down to be closer to the Sicilian price but it’s still odd how high some food prices are in Malta compared to other countries. – Tony Parker

Price fixing is one of the most draconian forms of market manipulation. The consequences are always dire. – M. Micallef

Back to Mintoff’s failed bulk-buying policy. – J. Grech

Supermarket prices have shot up over the last months. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Considering that many prices in Malta are higher than in other EU countries and the UK, could there be price fixing already, where the RRP is fixed higher than it should be? I think, rather than the government relying on pressure to reduce prices (maybe 15 per cent is not enough) it should wake up its regulator of the sector to investigate the money chain and determine factually what fair prices should be. Only random checks on a few items are needed to determine if there is widespread abuse. – Chris Farrugia

The importers are greedy. While everyone is made to feel the effects of inflation in gene­ral, the importers expect not to be affected at all and retain the same profits they have been making for decades. – J. Muscat

By the time this agreement of reducing some prices by 15 per cent comes into effect the same or other prices will be increased by 20 per cent. – K. Pace

The time has come to break these greedy importers’ monopolies. – Marcus Galea

If a pig sees/witnesses another pig pigging out, then, over a period of time, they both pig out big time… and let us not forget its exponential effect on all the other pigs.

But pigs are pigs and not humans. Our local pigs (businesses) are following the big master and his merry men. Why shouldn’t we be like these merry men running the country?

The unfortunate end of the story is that the honest, hard-working families have to pay for the pigging out of all these men. – Leonard Schembri

We need to enforce pricing on the shelf or product. This is missing on so many items that it has become standard practice for many shops. We need to enforce the display of unit pricing for each item. I now only shop where unit prices are calculated and displayed. Canned tuna, for example, varies from €8.50 to €24/kg and it is only possible to choose the best value if per kilo prices are displayed.

Enforce customer-facing displays at the point of sale. This has been a legal requirement since we introduced VAT 29 years ago. Most shops do not conform.

All the above will allow the consumer to choose the best value without the government having to beg importers and retailers to lower prices. – Mark Vassallo