Letters | Are Hong Kong’s supermarkets having a big fat pandemic at taxpayers’ expense?

Hong Kong’s top supermarket chains seem to have kept their government handouts but haven’t forgotten to mark up prices – by more than 200 per cent in one case

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Shoppers stock up on tissue paper at a supermarket in Hong Kong in February 2020, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic that triggered widespread panic buying. Photo: AP

Published: 6:55am, 8 Jun 2021Updated: 6:55am, 8 Jun 2021

In an article in your newspaper on August 18 last year, it was reported that Chief Executive Carrie Lam said if supermarket chains such as Wellcome and Fusion wish to receive government handouts, they should lower their prices to help those customers suffering the financial consequences of Covid-19.

In a further article on the subject, this time on October 20, it was reported that Wellcome were intending to give away more than half the HK$184.5 million received as Covid-19 relief from the government, to 250,000 needy families in the form of cash and meal vouchers.

I presume they did do that, which is worthy of them, but I am more interested in the fact that they kept about HK$80 million, which is ultimately largely taxpayers’ money, and yet they seem not to have reduced prices one iota. In fact, despite obviously having benefited from the epidemic, they have made some prices, frankly, ridiculous.

I will give one example, but I’m sure your readers can supply many more. In the Discovery Bay branch of Wellcome, the price of a can of Heinz Beef Ravioli is HK$41. A quick search on Google will show that in the UK, the same can costs £1.10, the equivalent of HK$12, i.e., the Hong Kong price is an increase of more than 233 per cent over the retail price in the UK which enables chains there to make a reasonable profit.

The Hong Kong government is able to keep transport prices at an acceptable level – why not food prices, especially in supermarkets? If the example cited is anything to go by, even if prices were reduced by 40 per cent, chains here would still make a good profit, in spite of shipping costs.