President Jeronimo Martins on the price war with Lidl. He talks about “Biedronka DNA”
Biedronka has it in its DNA to be the most competitive company in terms of prices. We have been banking on this from the very beginning and it will not change – said Pedro Soares dos Santos, president of Jeronimo Martins, owner of the Biedronka chain, in an interview with money.pl.
Money.pl asked the president of Jeronimo Martins, the owner of the Biedronka chain, to comment on the “price war” between Biedronka and Lidl. He announced that the chain would not give up maintaining low prices.
CEO of Jeronimo Martins on further price cuts
– Biedronka has it in its DNA to be the most competitive company in terms of prices. We have been committed to this from the very beginning and it will not change. It is natural that when prices slow down, sales volumes become a key factor for retail companies. In such situations, you should focus on price. Perhaps some companies suddenly noticed that their brand is not as recognizable through the prism of low prices as Biedronka. We are certainly determined to maintain this situation – argued Luis Araujo, president of Biedronka, in Lisbon during a meeting with Polish journalists.
He added that the Polish market is very competitive, and this year consumers will be favored by further decreasing inflation.
Glapiński: there is no more inflation
The president of the National Bank of Poland, Adam Glapiński, also spoke about falling inflation at Thursday's press conference. He even said that there is no inflation at the moment.
– One would like to start with some gesture of joy, a long-awaited and exhausted success. We finally have it! We are probably on an inflation target! – said the head of the National Bank of Poland.
Immediately after that, he added that there are no official data for February yet (in January, inflation was 3.9% year-on-year, the broad NBP inflation target is 1.5-3.5%), but everything indicates that in February, inflation dropped to around 3%. In his opinion, the role of the central bank plays an important role in this.
Why didn't the Monetary Policy Council lower interest rates?
Glapiński admitted that everyone is probably wondering why the Council did not lower rates in the face of falling inflation. He explained that Council members suspect that prices will start to rise again in the second half of the year, which will not be the result of monetary policy, but of the abolition of zero VAT on some food products. The zero rate has been in force since the beginning of 2022 and has been consistently extended. However, it is known that it cannot be maintained indefinitely, as it burdens the state budget.
– This uncertainty (regarding inflation – ed.) causes us to keep interest rates at the current level – explained Glapiński.
