Opinions differ on cheese. The connoisseur swears by the ten-euro piece of French origin from the specialist retailer, for the philistine the packaged Gouda slices for 1.89 euros will do the trick. A woman from Freilassing on the German-Austrian border involuntarily decided on the most unfavorable middle ground imaginable: she bought a supermarket’s own brand of cheese at a gourmet price at a weekly market. There is an ingenious business idea behind it.
When the woman was recently shopping at the market on a Wednesday and bought cubed cheese in a jar at a cheese stand for an impressive seven euros, she probably didn’t expect to get cheese from “K-Classic”, which costs 2.59 euros in the supermarket. But actually floating in the rapeseed oil, spiced up with herbs, was a product from Kaufland’s own brand: mass-produced goods instead of market romance. The front label no longer revealed the origin, but a serial number on the back did. The woman’s husband fumed about it in a Facebook group, the Passau New Press then went into the case. The responsible district office in Berchtesgadener Land has now confirmed the accusation.
The example of the deceptive packaging from Freilassing in times of sharply rising prices is not an isolated case. A popular trick of resourceful entrepreneurs who have to see where they are in bad times is the so-called shrinkflation: The packaging of margarine, crisps or gummy bears has been innocently shrunk by a quarter. The, well, clever adaptation to current market conditions is hardly noticeable even to experienced supermarket visitors – the price hasn’t changed.
The behavior of the cheese merchant could be described as similarly morally flexible. It’s illegal – just like him, by the way shrinkflation-Trick – not: The scam with the cheap cheese at a high price is “understandably non-transparent for the consumer”, but “not objectionable” from a “food law point of view”, according to the district office. If the information about the manufacturer and the ingredients is correct and the product is not advertised with incorrect information such as “handmade” or “from the region”, there is nothing to complain about legally. “To be called good” is the practice but still not.
One question remains unanswered: Did only the label reveal the discounter cheese, or did the taste also? Before they find out the answer to the question, entrepreneurs can think ahead about the business idea from Freilassing. As a precaution, pizzerias could order a few frozen pizzas that will end up on the plates in the future – and Opel dealers could carefully remove the O with the lightning bolt from the hood. Wouldn’t a fancy T fit in there too?