Price increases for food: resourceful IT experts instead of politics - transparency database failed

Price increases for food: resourceful IT experts instead of politics - transparency database failed

The price increases for food last year led to politicians taking action. However, a promising project to create a transparency database for price comparison was not initiated by the government, but by private IT experts. These private initiatives quickly demonstrated that it was possible to identify price patterns in supermarkets.

Last year, Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler and Minister of Social Affairs Johannes Rauch invited people to a “food summit”. Economics Minister Martin Kocher announced the creation of a price transparency database to improve the comparability of food prices. This measure should enable consumers to better compare prices and identify offers.

Despite the announcements from politicians, there were no concrete steps. Instead, private IT experts like Mario Zechner showed heisse-preise.io within a short time how price databases can be created. These projects revealed patterns in supermarket pricing, such as identical prices for products from the discount own brands S-Budget and Clever.

In the fall, the Federal Competition Authority presented proposals to increase price transparency. Kocher promised a legislative proposal, but it has not yet been implemented. Despite calls for a government pricing app, none of this has materialized so far and it seems unlikely that this will change in the future.

In a response to a parliamentary question, Kocher explained that due to existing private price comparison tools, a government alternative was not necessary. The argument suggests that consumers already have enough information to make price comparisons. Nevertheless, consumers can still resort to private projects to compare prices and achieve possible savings.