As South Africans brace themselves for yet another petrol price increase to a record R16 a litre, the Shoprite Group is working hard to keep prices low and subsidise prices where it can to bring relief to consumers who are feeling the effect of escalating petrol prices and other rising costs on their pockets.
In fact, many of its prices are coming down. Internal inflation figures at the Group’s South African supermarkets shows that prices have on average reduced – or been in 0.5% deflation for the three months until May 2018 with the result that there are approximately 6 477 items in its stores that are cheaper than last year.
These products include maize meal, white sugar, bananas, sunflower oil, avocados, margarine and disposable nappies.
The Group actively continues to subsidise products to make sure they remain affordable. Its 600g in-house bakery bread price, at R4.99 a loaf has not gone up since April 2016.
It has either subsidised or frozen prices on 6 793 tons of sugar, 8.3 million litres of cooking oil, 3.4 million litres of milk, 16 118 tons of maize, 9 555 tons of rice and 144.1 million loaves of bread since April 2016.
On VAT exempt items, it has introduced a number of initiatives to keep prices low as customers feel the effects of the VAT increase on their disposable income.
