"We are going to be the goal to beat in an election year

. "

In the food distribution sector, they do not hide their concern about the drift in which the public debate on the increase in the price of the shopping basket is immersed.

"The positions are not only ideological but have crossed the barrier of personal attacks," add sources from the sector in reference to the accusation against the president of Mercadona, Juan Roig, who is executing United We Can with the direct impulse of his general secretary and Government Minister, Ione Belarra.

The head of the Social Rights portfolio opened fire this Saturday by calling it

"indecent"

that the large supermarkets and their owners are "making gold in this crisis" and pointed directly to the president of Mercadona, whom she accused of "filling up pockets being

a ruthless capitalist

."

Far from appeasing, the attack against the businessman continued to escalate in intensity this Monday, when the spokesman for the United Left in the Congress of Deputies, Enrique Santiago, recalled that

Roig "appeared in Bárcenas' papers donating money to the Popular Party."

confrontation between partners

The tone used in his campaign against the supermarkets by the minority partner of the coalition was not liked in the socialist area and provoked a new confrontation within the Government.

The person in charge of giving the wake-up call was, on this occasion, the spokesperson for the PSOE Electoral Committee and Minister of Education,

Pilar Alegría

, who publicly demanded "moderation" and "verbal prudence" from the members of UP.

The targeting of businessmen by government ministers also aroused criticism from the PP.

The party's spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies,

Cuca Gamarra

, asked the Government to "respect the business sector a little more" and leave the "marks" to "focus on relieving the shopping basket" and

further lower VAT to meat, fish and preserves.

An option that, for the moment, the Ministry of Finance is ruling out, focused on the validation of the royal decree that has abolished the super-reduced rate of 4% on basic foods and has lowered it from 10% to 5% in the case of pasta and Oil.

From the companies directly indicated by Belarra and Unidas Podemos they prefer not to comment on the matter, but sources from the sector privately warn of the seriousness that from within the Government itself this price crisis is becoming a

"totally personalist issue, attacking and criminalizing businessmen

in a sector that is being forced to adjust their margins due to the sharp rise in industrial costs they are bearing".

Defense of the sector

From the distribution they insist that the margins of the companies in the sector move around 2% on average and categorically deny that they are benefiting from this crisis by raising prices.

In fact, according to the data provided by the

National Association of Large Distribution Companies

(

Anged

) to EL MUNDO, distribution has cushioned up to 6.8 points of the historical increase in industrial prices, that is, that the average price of the basket of the purchase has risen 6.8 points less than the price at which supermarkets buy these products from the food industry.

But from the far left flank of the coalition government they insist that supermarkets "are getting rich" in this crisis and defend

market intervention measures to cap the prices of food from the basic shopping basket to the

level in which

which were situated before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

A measure that, according to the calculations handled by the sector, would take supermarkets to red numbers in just over nine weeks.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Feeding

  • Inflation

  • Mercadona

  • United We Can

  • Ione Belarra