“I really doubt that traders can get away with raising prices without losing customers and ruining their businesses,” said Faisal Bataweel, manager of the Corporate Social Responsibility at JCCI’s Social Security Department.

“I feel that instead of complaining or having government bodies monitor prices, consumers should also learn that in order to save money they should abandon the practice of being loyal to a specific brand,” he said.

In recent years local traders of food and other seasonal items have been blamed by consumers for what they claim are illegal price manipulations during weeks leading up to Ramadan. But the JCCI official dismissed allegations of traders cornering the market on products, claiming the marketplace has adequate competition.

Bataweel said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry focuses on stabilizing prices for staple items, such as rice.

“Saudi Arabia has one of the most open markets in the world, even more open than the West,” he told Arab News. “If traders don’t like to purchase from local suppliers due to high prices they can go to any country and import items to sell in their stores at lower prices.”

According to the Saudi Arabia-Food & FMCG Report, published by Business Intelligence Middle East, traditional food shopping in the Kingdom is changing with products in the past being purchased from small wholesale shops or local livestock, vegetable or seafood markets. But in the last few years superstores have moved in and are claiming up to 60 percent of all food purchases.

Currently the Kingdom imports up to 80 percent of all food items as consumer-ready products. Some Saudi importers are also packaging foodstuffs from international origins under their own brand names to sell in the Kingdom to appeal to various types of local consumers.

“Some use labels with Western-sounding names to appeal to British, American or non-Arab expatriates,” the report stated.

“Salim Basamah Group, one of the largest importers of grocery items in Saudi Arabia, sells its merchandise under the Goody label while Basamah’s cousin, also a large food importer and processor, uses an Arabic-sounding private label, Al-Alali, to appeal to Saudis and Arabs, although a majority of the products are of US-origin, proving that brand loyalty is supreme in the Kingdom,” it said.

Bataweel said authorities should not interfere if customers remain loyal to certain brands and are willing to pay the price.

“This type of consumer cannot be protected and he does not have the right to blame traders or the government or manufacturers,” he said. “The only one he can blame is himself for refusing to use other brands. Instead of being loyal to a certain brand consumers in the Kingdom should learn to be loyal to their pockets.”