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Munich (dpa) - The law applies to everyone - and that's why the online retailer Amazon has to tell its customers the country of origin when ordering fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as the supermarket around the corner and the dealer at the weekly market.
The Munich Higher Regional Court clarified this and confirmed a judgment by the Munich Regional Court.
The judges made short work and announced their verdict after just two hours of hearing: appeal dismissed!
As Senate Chairman Andreas Müller explained, grocers must tell consumers the country in which the fruit and vegetables were harvested.
This transparent product information stipulates an EU regulation for the protection of consumers.
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The statement that the grapes come from Italy or Brazil or India or 10 other countries violates these guidelines.
"Perhaps I would like to have grapes from a European country in the autumn and not from South Africa," said the judge.
It is also against the law if mangoes are ordered from Senegal, but mangoes are then delivered from Israel.
The consumer protection association Foodwatch had found exactly that in test purchases and sued Amazon.
Amazon argued against it that specifying only one country of origin in online grocery stores is not possible.
That not a single online grocery retailer fulfills the requirements.
And that customers wouldn't expect that either.
If strawberries were ordered for a festival in three weeks, it depends on the weather and the harvest where the goods come from, said the Amazon lawyer.
It doesn't work that way, the regional court had already written in the company's record book: The EU market directive applies to everyone, and if the Amazon business model does not work with it, the online retailer has to change its business model and not the other way around.
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Amazon has now shown that - contrary to what was initially claimed - this is also possible.
As the company's lawyer said in court, Amazon fresh now specifies a specific country of origin.
However, customers can now only order three days in advance, the range has become smaller and "the sales volume has fallen by over 20 percent".
A hard blow, because according to the assessment of the Cologne trade research institute EHI, nobody in Germany has yet earned any money from online grocery retailing - apart from specialists such as wine mailers.
That is why there are only a few in this field.
While the supermarkets and discounters generate the largest sales in the local retail sector, it is exactly the opposite in the online world: The grocery stores are the dwarfs with just under two percent business share.
“There are very few full-range suppliers like Rewe or Amazon fresh.
Sending fresh fruit and vegetables and frozen fish is a challenge, ”says Lars Hofacker, head of the EHI research area E-Commerce.
“If the ravioli manufacturer changes the recipe, the buyer can read it on the can.
It's much more complex online. "
This also includes questions of liability, for example in the case of allergies.
«The Rewes and Edekas proceed very conscientiously.
Start-ups sometimes seem, well, to be more pragmatic. "
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The online full-range retailers are mainly on the move in large cities, where there are also many shops.
When Amazon announced four years ago that it would be bringing food to the market, some people said: “Now everything is changing!
But that hasn't happened yet, ”says Hofacker.
"Consumers and retailers are still getting closer to the topic."
After all, there are around 37,000 grocery stores and countless farmers' and weekly markets in Germany.
Last year, according to the Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order (bevh), the turnover of online grocers rose from 1.6 to 2.7 billion euros.
The corona pandemic brought them new customers.
"Some older people who did not want to go to a store have learned: this is an option if you are no longer as mobile," says Hofacker.
"After Corona, online food retailing should continue to grow at a higher level."
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210218-99-496200 / 2
Judgment LG Munich
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