Feletti deepens control over large food groups / Argentina News

As he works out how to fill the void left by the unexpected resignation of Debora Giorgi and seeks to coordinate new meetings with companies in the sector, Roberto Feletti it deepens the measures to regulate the presence of the products in the gondolas.

The objective of the Secretary of Internal Commerce is to limit the quantity of articles that the big food groups offer to the consumers in the hypermarket chains.

Especially those that have a great variety of articles in official programs such as that of Care Prices expanded that will keep the value of more than 1,400 products frozen, at least until January 7 of next year.

In this context, the body that depends on the Ministry of Productive Development in charge of Matias Kulfas A few days ago, it published Resolution 1055/2021 in the Official Gazette by which it expands certain measures already provided by the Gondolas Law (Law No. 27,545) and Decree No. 991 of December 14, 2020 that regulated said rule.

According to the recitals of the resolution, the measure tends to “contribute to the fact that the price of food products, drinks, hygiene and home cleaning is transparent and competitive, for the benefit of consumers; to maintain harmony and balance between the economic operators reached by the law “.

The purpose would be to prevent large producer groups “from engaging in commercial practices that harm or imply a risk for competition or cause distortions in the market.”

It also seeks to expand the offer of national artisanal or regional products manufactured by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and to promote, through a special regime, the offer of products from the family, peasant and indigenous agriculture sector and those generated by starting from cooperatives or mutual associations.

In the letter, Feletti also recalls that Resolution No. 110 of last January 27 stipulated the characteristics that face-to-face sales rooms must offer to the public of the businesses covered by the Gondolas Law.

In this context, another resolution, No. 190 of February 24, essentially established the measurement tools to be used by inspectors for the monitoring and control of the Gondolas Law; the exhibition grouped by category of the products; filing of affidavits; list of commercialization registrations and temporary non-compliance due to lack of competence and the inspection regulations.

To complement all these regulations, Domestic trade issued the new resolution that qualifies as complementary to the inspection regulations “in order to make transparent and clarify the way in which the provisions of subsection a) of Article 7 of Law No. 27,545 on Gondolas will be controlled, in order to to determine the percentage of exhibition space of the same supplier or business group on the total surface of exhibition in gondolas in the face-to-face sales rooms, with respect to each category of products “.

Exhibition and spaces

Specifically and to calculate the space of gondola display from the same supplier, the spaces occupied by the products of the same group within the same category are added.

To this end, the resolution takes into account the surface resulting from the base of the shelf or display device “that occupies a homogeneous grouping of products by the total height of said shelves, regardless of the height of the products displayed “.

In the case of the last shelf, where there is no structure in the upper part, the height resulting from the product or higher product group.

Regarding the display area to be computed from the same supplier, it must respond to a grouped and easily recognizable set and available to consumers.

The norm clarifies that “the spaces occupied by dispersed products that are not exhibited in a grouped way or that occasionally occupy exhibition spaces of another should not be added. brand or supplier and where it can be presumed that its isolated location responds to manipulation by consumers. ”

The display area to be computed from the same supplier must respond to a grouped and easily recognizable set

Meanwhile, Article 3 details the mode of use of the empty or semi-empty gondola spaces on the clear, visible and horizontal indication of a certain brand or supplier in the gondola. “They must be counted as exhibition spaces belonging to said supplier or business group”, determines the resolution.

Regarding the display surface in gondolas clarifies that they will not be computed for the purposes of accounting for the exhibition space for the main supplier’s products.

Then, Article 5 provides that during the audit procedure The head of the sales room must guide and allow inspectors access to all the gondola spaces where the products that make up the inspected categories are displayed.

“To this end, the inspectors will list to the person in charge of the sales room the categories subject to inspection and the products that compose it, in accordance with Resolution No. 110/21 of the Ministry of Internal Trade, of which will record in the Respective act“, adds the regulation.

It also instructs the inspectors to carry out a photographic record of all the exhibition spaces in the gondola that contain the products of the main supplier of the category and whose measurements have been surveyed to verify the percentage they occupy. “Said records will be part of the Inspection Act and must state the day and time in which they were obtained,” claims the standard signed by Feletti on November 25.