Greater Region Price Comparison Shows Luxembourg Supermarkets Competitive

The Consumer Council's "price formation" commission met on 12 June 2018 as part of the work of the Observatory for the formation of prices of the Ministry of the Economy; this commission, which includes representatives of consumers, employers' organisations and the government, is responsible for studying and discussing the analyses and reports of the Observatory of Price Formation.

The Observatory of Price Formation presented the new edition of the "4 Borders Study" which compares the prices of strictly identical products in a sample of supermarkets in the Greater Region. The main objective of the "4 Borders Study" was to determine whether the price level of strictly identical products sold in supermarkets across Luxembourg is competitive with the Greater Region. Taking into account the fact that such a cross-border comparison of prices is a complex operation because of many methodological limitations, the analyses of the Price Formation Observatory nevertheless make it possible to draw the following conclusions for Luxembourg:

- The average price level across Luxembourg is slightly lower compared to the rest of the Greater Region and has improved compared to the previous edition of the study. The prices analysed are lower than those of Belgium, but remain higher than those of France and Germany.

- In terms of the analysis of six individual retailers in Luxembourg, a more detailed analysis makes it possible to determine that three of these retailers have a competitive advantage compared to the average of the Greater Region.

- The analysis of brands in the same group in several countries leads to the conclusion that four of the six entities located in Luxembourg have price levels lower than those of their counterparts abroad and only two Luxembourg entities are significantly more expensive than the same brands across the border.

- The price levels of organic products are slightly higher in Luxembourg than in the Greater Region.