Strawberry scandal at Aldi: Customers pack expensive fruits!

Philipp Hennerkes, Managing Director of the Federal Association of German Food Trade (BVLH), confirmed in an interview that such tricks often occur. Loose goods, such as fresh fruit, are particularly affected. Customers often use practices such as label exchange or absentantanipulation to press the price. Aldi and other supermarkets react to these challenges with attentive staff and surveillance to self-checkout cash registers. Hennerkes also explained that the weight of the fruits is weighed again at the cash register, which means that consumers have to pay the correct kilo price.

The background of the price increases

The current price increase for strawberries reflects a general trend, because the price level for food has increased by around 30 percent since 2021, as the NRW consumer center states. This affects all food groups, including staple foods. Several factors lead to this inflation: higher costs for energy, fertilizers and feed as well as a shortage of workers that drives the personnel costs. In addition, climate change has led to more frequent missed, which also drives the prices.

An example of the price fluctuations is butter, the costs of which have been subject to heavy fluctuations since the Ukraine War. Consumers are increasingly dependent on price comparisons and cheaper alternatives to keep their diet affordable. Therefore, it is increasingly difficult for many people to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. The consumer advice centers therefore call for a political and antitrust examination of the pricing both in retail and food manufacturers in order to make prices for end consumers more transparent and to avoid unjustified price increases.

The debate about price knitting and increasing food prices not only raises questions about ethics in consumer behavior, but also to the need for measures at the political level to regulate the market and to guarantee consumers fair prices.