Many supermarkets in HCM City have reduced prices of essential goods to share with customers during the pandemic.

Supermarkets slash food prices amid COVID-19

The representative of Saigon Co.op said their supermarket chains which include Co.opmart, Co.opXtra, and Co.op Food will all reduce food prices in August as an effort to help their customers. Meat, fish, cooking oil, instant noodles and spices will all have prices deeply cut.

At the Co.opmart Nhieu Loc in District 3, the prices of pork and beef were reduced by 10-20%. A kilo of grounded pork is sold at VND153,000 and the Australian pork sold at VND259,000 (US$11) to VND280,000 a kilo. Many fish prices had price cut by 15%.

A litre of cooking oil costs VND24,000 (US$1) to VND25,000 and instant noodles cost just VND1,000-VND2,000 a pack.

Pham Quynh Trang from District 10 said since June, her salary has dropped by 20-30% so every expense must be tightened. "Seeing discount prices for meat and fish makes me relieved. We want to save as much as we can no matter what," she said.

Do Quoc Huy, marketing director of Saigon Co.op said they had prepared a large number of goods for the retail system so customers don't have to worry about food shortage for their daily meals.

"We have worked with hundreds of suppliers and partners on the discount plan for August. The top priority for discount programme is fresh food," he said.

Go! and BigC supermarket chains also offer discount programmes for customers in August. At BigC Market, bacon is VND179,000 (US$7.7) a kilo and the grounded pork price is VND152,000 a kilo. The pork prices, in general, dropped by VND25,000-VND30,000 a kilo.

Customers at BigC To Hien Thanh said they had bought more pork since the discount programme started.

"Usually, I’d buy 1kg of pork belly but today I bought 3kg. I think this programme is very practical and helpful since the incomes of many people have been affected," said Tran Thi Bay from District 10.

The representatives of Go! and BigC supermarkets said pork sales had grown 70%. However, due to a shortage of live pigs, many suppliers haven't lowered the pork prices yet. That's why they started programmes to sell pork at breakeven prices to help customers overcome this difficult time.