The Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection (Deco) has launched an auction to help consumers save on the purchase of basic staples when visiting supermarkets.
This follows similar initiatives organised by Portugal’s largest consumer association, by forming large consumer groups to purchase electricity, gas and fuel at bulk prices, negotiating the price directly with producers and distributors. The theory is that the more goods or commodities are bought, the cheaper they are.
According to Deco, the idea is to joining a large number of consumers in order to get the biggest discount from supermarkets for a basket of 35 categories of essential products. This savings will be guaranteed for one year.
The list of products includes water, sugar, rice, wheat flour, olive oil, breakfast cereals, UHT milk, butter, eggs, fresh bread, packed ham, cheese, yoghurt, frozen fish, canned vegetables, canned tuna, frozen vegetables, meat, fresh fish, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.
All Portuguese can participate in the first supermarket auction: they only have to register on the website www.poupenocabaz.pt, i.e. they do not need to be members of Deco. Registrations are open until May 31 and the auction will take place on June 2. Subsequently, all those who register will receive, free of charge, a Deco+ card that will enable them to benefit from the discount resulting from the auction.
At the moment, over 474,000 Portuguese have registered to take part in the auction.
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic
