Picnic delivers products from Germany because of the huge price difference
We recently wrote about the fact that supermarkets just keep getting more and more expensive. And it now turns out that the Netherlands is indeed quite pricey, even compared with our neighbouring countries: Germany, for example, is considerably cheaper. The difference can be substantial—so much so that delivery service Picnic now offers the option of ordering German products.
Products from Hak such as apple sauce, Coca-Cola, Nutella and Pringles are considerably cheaper with a German label on them. Joris Beckers of Picnic explains: ‘In our app, you can indicate that you want products with the label ‘On the road for the best price.”
How much it saves you
I was quite surprised by that: the difference is truly huge. For example, a can of Coca-Cola costs 1.83 in the Netherlands, but 1.03 in Germany. Nutella is also 23 cents cheaper, and Magnums especially: they are 1.49 more expensive in the Netherlands. Crazy, right? Here, they cost 5.22 on the shelves, while at our eastern neighbours’ they cost 3.73.
But why aren’t Albert Heijn or other supermarkets doing this as well? ‘Regular supermarkets aren’t allowed to do this because the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority requires packaging to be in the native language. But we can translate the labels in our app, which means we can offer them,’ Beckers explains. Well, there you go—I think plenty of people would be happy to use Google Translate for this price difference.
‘Scandalous’
Beckers calls the differences ‘scandalous’, and I completely agree with him. ‘The major brands benefit from the European market. There is, for example, only one Magnum factory in all of Europe, and it is in Italy. So there is only one production cost for an ice cream. And yet we pay different prices.’ Absurd, right?
By the way, if you want to find the best deals in a shop, run to Action: they have been buying foreign A-brands at lower prices for years.
Read also:
- Shocking: the Dutch eat ridiculously little vegetables
- Study reveals what is less healthy: supermarket pizza or pizza from a chain
- Buying a spice mix at the supermarket: you are often being ripped off
Source: RTL Nieuws
