Bounty cuts mark-up by 10% on essential commodities
Bounty Farms Ltd. has initiated a 10 per cent cut in mark-ups on some essential food items over a limited period in what the company’s General Manager Angelique deGroot has told Stabroek is a cost of living ease initiative designed to bring a measure of relief from continually rising food prices.
In June Bounty Farms announced that it was offering special prices on some essential items including sugar, flour, rice, milk, cooking oil, selected chicken parts and soap powder and deGroot told Stabroek Business that while the initiative will last up to August 2 in the first place the company would not rule out its extension subject to review.
Bounty Farms currently operates three supermarkets in Kitty; Regent Street, Bourda and a third in Water Street, Stabroek. A fourth Bounty Farm supermarket will be opened in Grove in September.
According to deGroot the cost of living ease initiative arose out of deliberations among the Bounty Farms management team and was initially designed to reduce food prices for the more than 1200 Bounty Farms employees and their families. “Once we took account of the wider situation of food prices and its impact on consumers as a whole we decided that the facility would be extended to the consuming public as a whole,” deGroot added,
A statement made available to Stabroek Business by Bounty Farms said that high oil prices, changing diets, urbanization, economic growth and expanding populations were among the underlying factors influencing rising food prices and Bounty Farms Managing Director Peter deGroot said that food prices will continue to rise as the price of oil continues its upward spiral. “It is clear that at the domestic level we need to find ways of seeking to cushion the strain on consumers since while prices are going up salaries are going nowhere. What is also disturbing is that when you look down the tunnel there is really no light at the other end at this time”, deGroot added.
Meanwhile, the Bounty Farms Ltd. General Manager told Stabroek Business that she believed that other members of the business sector could take similar initiatives “or perhaps do different things to help the situation wherever possible.”