Turkey's grocery chains join direct sale points campaign

Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey will start providing vegetables for the big grocery chains, including Migros, Carrefour, A101, Şok and BİM, in addition to the direct sale points initially installed by the Ankara and Istanbul municipalities, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said yesterday.

The minister noted that the direct sale points have spread to 110 locations across Turkey with the participation of municipalities from Bursa, Balıkesir, Samsun, Gaziantep and Trabzon. He confirmed that these sale points dragged down vegetable and fruit prices by 40 to 50 percent.

Minister Pakdemirli also announced that the 16,000 branches of the largest supermarket chains will procure agriculture produce from the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives and sell them at the same prices as the municipality-run direct sale points.

In February, the municipalities in Turkey's two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara, established sale points that sell a number of agricultural products to average consumers at prices considerably lower than those at neighborhood retail marketplaces or supermarket chains. The vegetables sold at municipal direct sale points are supplied from five regional directorates of the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives of Turkey, including Antalya, İzmir, Kütahya, Mersin and Ankara. In addition to fruits and vegetables, direct sale points also offer different types of legumes for Turkish consumers.

This practice is called "tanzim satış" in Turkish. The word "tanzim" means order, regulation and regulating in Turkish and "satış" mean sale; these sale points were launched by the Turkish government as an intervention into increasing food prices, particularly following food inflation in January which had reached nearly 31 percent.

The state-run postal service Turkish Post and Telegraph Organization (PTT)'s online marketplace platform www.epttavm.com also continues to sell vegetables and fruit.