CreatripTeam

President Lee Jae-myung criticized the government’s failure to control food prices and ordered a wide investigation into possible price collusion and unfair practices across the food supply chain. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has begun on-site inspections of major flour mills and is probing sugar and egg markets to see why retail bread prices remain high even though global commodity prices (flour, sugar) have fallen. Data show popular baked goods like bagels rose about 44% in three years. Regulators are also investigating large supermarkets for allegedly inflating prices just before government-supported discount campaigns (a program that reimburses retailers for part of farmers’ discount) and then presenting the items as deeply discounted. Lawmakers and consumer groups point to cases where supermarket sale prices were higher than traditional markets or department stores, suggesting “fake discounting.” The government aims to examine not only explicit collusion but also possible implicit cartels and structural issues in distribution that keep consumer prices sticky, while retailers argue price-setting is affected by contracts, exchange rates, logistics and labor costs.