Prices of supermarkets strangle the producers of food
Margins on products in Russian supermarkets threaten to destroy the domestic food industry, state representatives of business.
Will trade chains kill the manufacturer?
The topic of margins of retail chains for food products raised Elvira Agurbash, first Vice-President of the meat processing company "Mortadel" on the parliamentary hearings in the Federation Council Committee on agrarian and food policy. According to her, the current procurement policy the federal grocery retailers become real gravediggers for manufacturers.
"When I hear about trade margins at 40-45%, I feel funny, said Agurbash. Trading margin for the products in reality varies from 80 to 252%."
The representative of "Mortadel" calculates interest margins comparing the retail prices in the stores of the trade chain with purchase prices in invoices. At the same time 90% of products trade chains buy from the manufacturer at a discount of 40-50%, according to Agurbash. Due to these prices, buyers see in the trading rooms the so-called action, that is, can buy the products cheaper. Almost like at the stock of the manufacturer. But the percentage of the profits of the trade chain remains the same — high, and the producer operates at a loss.
Agurbash offers the Federal Antimonopoly service to pay attention to the situation. "We are ready to show them our invoices, calculation cards, which show how much profit we lay, and how much the retailers do," says the manager.
No more than 15%
"At the moment, retail margins on food products in Russia make up to 100% for individual groups of goods, and on average - 40-50%, while in the EU countries this indicator reaches a maximum of 25%", — stated in the explanatory note to the draft law submitted to the Duma in 2013 by deputies Sergei Mironov and Anton Belyakov.
The project involved the establishment of a maximum trading margin on socially significant goods at 15% of the sale price to the first wholesale buyer. Anton Belyakov, one of the authors of the bill, went from the lower house of the Federal Assembly to the upper house, but proposed by him draft on the limitation of trade margins was rejected in the first reading.
Negative margins
"Average trading margin, according to Rosstat, during the last few years was at the level of 27%, — says Ilya Lomakin-Rumyantsev, Chairman of the Presidium of the retail companies Association. — There are really some products which are high margin — it can be 80, and 100, and even 250%. They so-called goods of the premium segment, which include, for example, the cervelat sausage — we may easily live without it! Beside it there is vodka, expensive confectionery... There may be high margins".
Theoretically, the state can begin to adjust the margins, but it will be a serious problem, warns Lomakin-Rumyantsev. An example is the pharmaceutical market where such regulation leads to washout of the cheap range, but in general prices will go up, because the possibility of cross-subsidization will disappear. There may be collusion with a manufacturer in order to sell product more expensively: then, a fixed margin in absolute numbers will be higher.
"This logic, the expert said, — will lead to the establishment of rigid prices, and the consequences this are quite clear".
The topic of margins of retail chains for food products raised Elvira Agurbash, first Vice-President of the meat processing company "Mortadel" on the parliamentary hearings in the Federation Council Committee on agrarian and food policy. According to her, the current procurement policy the federal grocery retailers become real gravediggers for manufacturers.
"When I hear about trade margins at 40-45%, I feel funny, said Agurbash. Trading margin for the products in reality varies from 80 to 252%."
The representative of "Mortadel" calculates interest margins comparing the retail prices in the stores of the trade chain with purchase prices in invoices. At the same time 90% of products trade chains buy from the manufacturer at a discount of 40-50%, according to Agurbash. Due to these prices, buyers see in the trading rooms the so-called action, that is, can buy the products cheaper. Almost like at the stock of the manufacturer. But the percentage of the profits of the trade chain remains the same — high, and the producer operates at a loss.
Agurbash offers the Federal Antimonopoly service to pay attention to the situation. "We are ready to show them our invoices, calculation cards, which show how much profit we lay, and how much the retailers do," says the manager.
No more than 15%
"At the moment, retail margins on food products in Russia make up to 100% for individual groups of goods, and on average - 40-50%, while in the EU countries this indicator reaches a maximum of 25%", — stated in the explanatory note to the draft law submitted to the Duma in 2013 by deputies Sergei Mironov and Anton Belyakov.
The project involved the establishment of a maximum trading margin on socially significant goods at 15% of the sale price to the first wholesale buyer. Anton Belyakov, one of the authors of the bill, went from the lower house of the Federal Assembly to the upper house, but proposed by him draft on the limitation of trade margins was rejected in the first reading.
Negative margins
"Average trading margin, according to Rosstat, during the last few years was at the level of 27%, — says Ilya Lomakin-Rumyantsev, Chairman of the Presidium of the retail companies Association. — There are really some products which are high margin — it can be 80, and 100, and even 250%. They so-called goods of the premium segment, which include, for example, the cervelat sausage — we may easily live without it! Beside it there is vodka, expensive confectionery... There may be high margins".
Theoretically, the state can begin to adjust the margins, but it will be a serious problem, warns Lomakin-Rumyantsev. An example is the pharmaceutical market where such regulation leads to washout of the cheap range, but in general prices will go up, because the possibility of cross-subsidization will disappear. There may be collusion with a manufacturer in order to sell product more expensively: then, a fixed margin in absolute numbers will be higher.
"This logic, the expert said, — will lead to the establishment of rigid prices, and the consequences this are quite clear".
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