Supermarkets could be forced to give 50 pct of space to Romanian food products

Supermarkets could be obliged to ensure exposure space of minimum 50 percent for food products from Romanian producers, of which at least 20 percent would go to local producers, according to a new draft bill initiated by liberal MPs, as cited by Agerpres.

Those who sell food products will have to “for food products – milk and dairy products, meat and meat products, vegetables and products made from these, bread, pastry and confectionery –, produced by Romanian producers, to ensure exposure and sales spaces of at least 50 percent of the existing surface used for food product commercialization. In this sense, a minimum of 20 percent of those spaces are to be allocated to all local producers,” according to the draft bill text.

Moreover, the proposed legislation also says that services, discounts and other obligations asked by sellers of the Romanian producers cannot be more than 5 percent of the value of the goods being sold.

In their reasoning, the initiators of the draft bill say that the measures would come as a support “of Romanian, local producers’ access to the large retail chains, and consumers will benefit from fresh, quality products with a clear traceability.”

Furthermore, they add that “in Romania, despite several initiatives from producer associations to impose a set of good practices in the relationship with the retailers, the regulation remains stuffy and permissive.” In Romania, 1.6 million of Romanians depend on income from agriculture, “and agriculture contributes only approximately 4 percent to the GDP, [which makes it] evident that these discrepancies are not only caused by structural causes, such as property structure or technology used, but also by the access to the market,” argue the draft bill’s initiators.