Expanded 'Lock Prices' initiative in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

From March 15, the second wave of the voluntary project of the Federal Ministry of Trade, Retailers, Producers, Consumers, and Trade Unions "Lock Prices" begins and will last until June 16 this year. The list of products with a reduced and locked price has been expanded from 40 to 60 products. As the Ministry announced, the new list includes products used by patients with celiac disease and diabetes. At the suggestion of the associations of these groups, retailers came out to meet, and prices for four products for a special diet were lowered and locked down in the next three months.

The project, which initially started on December 15, 2023, has been evaluated as a success. Customers were able to save about 15 to 20% on this cart of products based on the analysis of the previous period.

The manufacturers assessed that there was a significant increase in interest in the products they included in this basket, and they were additionally engaged to participate in the continuation of the project. In the first part of this project, consumers pointed out the problem of insufficiently transparent labeling of products with individual retailers.

To standardize and unify advertising, it was agreed that the poster with items that are part of Project 'Locking Prices' and on which the photo of the product, the earlier retail price, and the locked price should be visible in a larger format. 

Also, an agreement was reached that trade facilities of a larger scale, such as supermarkets and hypermarkets within the facility, may allocate a corner called 'Locking prices', where for easier orientation of customers in one place would be products with locked prices, excluding, of course, those products that cannot be exposed on the shelf in this way (meat, sour cream, cheese, etc.). The Ministry has submitted a new list and invited traders and manufacturers who are interested but have not participated so far to join this project, which is still voluntary.