The Greek government unveiled PosoKanei, a new digital platform designed to improve transparency in the retail market by allowing consumers to compare supermarket prices and identify the cheapest options for everyday goods.
At first glance, the initiative addresses a genuine need. The platform enables users to track product prices across supermarket chains, monitor historical price movements, create shopping lists and, in some cases, compare domestic prices with those in other European countries. For consumers seeking to reduce their grocery bills, the tool offers a straightforward way to navigate an increasingly expensive marketplace.
Yet while PosoKanei may help households find lower prices, it does little to answer the question dominating public debate in Greece and elsewhere in Europe: Why are prices so high in the first place?
ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ ΕΠΙΣΗΣ
The platform focuses exclusively on the final price consumers encounter on store shelves. What it does not reveal is how that price was formed along the supply chain. It shows the outcome, not the process.
As a result, consumers can see that a product is more expensive in Greece than in another European Union country, or that substantial price differences exist between competing retailers. What they cannot determine is how much of that gap stems from production costs, international commodity prices, energy expenses, transportation, processing, imports, taxation or profit margins accumulated at various stages before the product reaches the checkout counter.
That limitation is significant. At a time when policymakers across Europe are grappling with persistent inflation and questions about market competition, simply displaying retail prices provides only a partial picture. Transparency is not merely about comparing prices; it is also about understanding the forces that shape them.
A more comprehensive approach would combine the consumer-facing features of PosoKanei with the logic underpinning the European Union’s food price monitoring initiatives, which track price developments across multiple stages of the supply chain. Such a system would allow users to follow the evolution of prices from production through wholesale distribution and ultimately to retail sale.
For products such as milk, olive oil, bread and pasta, consumers could view producer prices alongside changes in energy costs, international raw-material prices, food industry costs, wholesale market movements and final retail prices. Such information would make it easier to determine whether increases on supermarket shelves reflect genuine cost pressures or whether prices are rising disproportionately relative to upstream costs.
The benefits would extend beyond consumers. Regulators could use such a platform as an early-warning system for potential market distortions. If energy or commodity prices were falling while retail prices remained unchanged - or continued to rise - authorities could quickly identify those discrepancies and investigate whether competitive pressures were functioning as intended.
Drawing on data from Greece’s statistical authority, Eurostat, government ministries, wholesale markets, import statistics, energy markets and retail businesses, such a platform could evolve into a powerful tool for understanding inflation rather than simply documenting it.
Ultimately, the real test for PosoKanei is not whether it can identify the cheapest supermarket. It is whether it can help explain why prices remain elevated. In its current form, the platform succeeds at the former but falls short on the latter. As a shopping aid it may prove useful; as a tool for understanding inflation, it remains incomplete.
