Mega Kenyan Supermarket Chain Probed for Price Fixing

From detergent to sausages, tissue paper and even sanitary pads, almost everything seems to be on a discount across Carrefour supermarkets in Kenya. It is a strategy that has helped the giant French retailer make headway in Kenya’s tough retail sector, which is littered with the carcasses of other supermarket chains from far and wide. Since setting up shop in East Africa’s biggest economy in 2016, Carrefour has expanded quickly and now runs 13 outlets in the major cities of Nairobi and Mombasa, making it one of the country’s biggest foreign supermarket chains. But as a recent ruling by Kenya’s Competition Tribunal (CT) showed, Carrefour’s success is coming at a steep price and not to the chain itself. While most shoppers may not be interested in how Carrefour arrives at the lower prices, it would appear that the supermarket chain has been deriving some of its discounting power from compelling its suppliers to shoulder the burden of the apparent bargains.

SOURCE: BBC