Milk powder prices shoot up 30%

JEDDAH:Retail prices of milk powder have increased by as much as 30 percent these days in Riyadh as compared to the price at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s online basic foodstuff price index.
A media report yesterday said that the hike in powdered milk prices was detected at pharmacies and major retail stores in the city.
The price for a 900-gm Nido milk powder can reached SR 44 to SR 10 or 29 percent more than the SR 34 average price at the ministry’s index.
Four hundred grams of the same brand was found selling for SR 21, while its price in the index was SR 17 on Thursday. Several people said the prices on the ministry’s index do not at all show the real prices at outlets.
Nasser Al-Tuwaim, head of the Saudi Consumer Protection Association, said the association had proposed to the relevant authorities to have powdered milk products tagged with their prices, as done with medications. He said milk powder is one of the basic foodstuffs the government subsidizes, adding that the decrease in euro prices globally should have caused its prices to decrease.
Pharmacies and retailers say they have no role in increasing powdered milk prices. According to them, the parties who set the prices are the products’ exclusive suppliers in Saudi Arabia. “Milk prices are subject to the suppliers’ mood; they set the prices for pharmacies and retail stores,” said an official of a major pharmacy in Riyadh, who added he had invoices to prove it.
“Customers always blame us, and we tell them we don’t have a choice but to buy the product at increased prices from the supplier. We have no jurisdiction to object to the increase,” he said. He added that most suppliers attributed the rise in prices to global price hikes in all foodstuff products on fears of a global food crisis.
Abdullah Alluqmani, a consumer, said prices of milk powder rose gradually. He called on the Commerce and Industry Ministry and the Consumer Protection Association to intervene and control the prices. “Monitoring pharmacies and stores is not enough. Consumers know that major importers are the ones controlling the prices, and they raise them whenever they want with no control over them,” he said.