Sonae boss Cláudia Azevedo has warned today that in an “open and global market” such as food distribution the setting of maximum prices “always works out wrong” and is more likely to result in “empty supermarket shelves”. Talking to Lusa today on the presentation of the group’s 2022 accounts, she insisted “trying to fix prices (which has been suggested as a way of halting food price increases) never works. A Portuguese producer who has to remunerate his production factors – and very well – will not want to sell to a Portuguese chain with fixed prices”, she said. “He’ll sell abroad. And an international producer won’t sell to Portugal with such low margins either. I think the end result of such a policy would be empty shelves. And I don’t think anyone wants that”.
