DTI: milk, bread manufacturers agree to decrease SRPs

After another round of discussions with manufacturers of milk and bread, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announces that Nestle’ Philippines will decrease its suggested retail price (SRP) of its Bear brand powdered milk of 150 grams by P1.00 and that the community bakers will either decrease its “pandesal” by P0.15 per piece or increase its weight of 2 grams per piece.

DTI-Consumer Protection Group (CPG) Undersecretary Atty. Victorio Mario A. Dimagiba also announces that the DTI is closely working with the producers of Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy pandesal to conduct tests on the use of alternative flour brands so they can lower their prices of said products.

Undersecretary Dimagiba narrates, “The DTI has been consistent in its discussions with the industries in persuading them to help the government in assuring the public that market prices of basic necessities and prime commodities are reasonable and appropriate”.

The “pandesal” from community bakeries in the country has a price range of P2.00-P2.50 per piece with a corresponding weight range of 25-30 grams. Mr. Lucito Chavez, Philippine Federation of Bakers’ Association, Inc. (PFBAI) National Vice President and Tinapayan President expresses, “Through the DTI, our organization was made aware of the decreasing LPG prices that prompted us to act immediately. Now I encourage other community bakers, particularly those that use LPG in their operations, to make their move to either bring down their price or add more weight per pandesal”. 

Philippine Baking (Philbaking) President Nestor Constancia affirms, “The DTI discussed with us the drop of LPG prices, however, we explained to them that the Philbaking members are using electricity in preparing breads. But we are always in support of the DTI in developing programs that will extend help to consumers, to which we agreed to look for flour brands with lower prices that we can use in our new formulation for the Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy pandesal”. He adds, “We are optimistic about the new formulation for Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy pandesal and expect to be ready with these in the market by the latter part of February with reduced SRPs”.

Currently, the Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy pandesal have the SRPs of P36.50 per loaf bread and P22.25 per 10-piece pack, respectively.

Nestle’ Philippines Senior Vice President Edith de Leon asserts, “Effective 01 March 2015, we are decreasing the SRP of our most saleable milk product, Bear Brand powdered milk in 150 grams, from P51.00 to P50.00. Although there are product costs that hinder us to lower our prices such as the impacts of port congestion, we heed to DTI’s call to help the consumers. In addition, starting 01 April 2015, Nestle’ will provide extra grams in its Bear Brand powdered milk in 320 grams, 900 grams and 1.2 grams at the same prices. This is another assistance that we have developed for consumers that continuously patronize our products”, SVP De Leon says.

Undersecretary Dimagiba reports that his office received a commitment from CDO, a manufacturer of luncheon meat and corned beef brands, that it will not increase its prices. He also reports that his office is still waiting for another discussion with Nissin Monde, an instant noodles manufacturer but expects them to decrease a 55 gram-pack by 10-15 centavos.

On the other hand, the DTI discloses that it will set meetings with flour millers next week to start discussions on the reduction of prices of flour bags to further bring down the SRPs of Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy pandesal. 

Undersecretary Dimagiba reiterates, “The DTI continues its strengthened price monitoring and enforcement activities in the market to ensure adequacy of supply and verify retailers’ adherence to the SRPs as mandated by Republic Act No. 7581 or the Price Act”.

When the CPG provided the DTI Secretary the updates on the discussions with the manufacturers, he uttered that he’s pleased on the developments but urged the CPG to continue the dialogues with the manufacturers to ensure that the decline on world oil prices is reflected on the prices of basic goods that Filipino consumers utilize.

DTI Gregory L. Domingo states, “This is good news. Yet, more discussions should be conducted to further understand the factors that affect their product costs as we expect more products to have price adjustments that will result to lower SRPs“.

The DTI, as Chair, has set to convene the National Price Coordinating Council on 05 February 2015 to check on the price and supply of other products under the basic necessities and prime commodities that are under the jurisdictions of the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Health (DOH), Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and, Energy (DOE).

Prior to their purchases, the DTI enjoins the consumers to check on the published SRPs for non-agricultural basic necessities and prime commodities at the DTI website http://dti.gov.ph/dti/index.php/price-watch(BantayPresyo-Monitored Prices of Basic Commodities-Monthly Report) and to report retailers that sell above the SRPs at DTI Direct 751-3330 or 09178343330.

DTI warns public against unreputable freight forwarders

The Department of Trade and Industry’s Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau (DTI-FTEB) warns the public against the 43 unreputablefreight forwarders, which were the subject of complaints from shippers and consignees for non-delivery of Balikbayan boxes. 

DTI-Consumer Protection Group (CPG) Undersecretary Atty. Victorio Mario A. Dimagiba narrates, “In its latest advisory, DTI-FTEB listed these erring foreign and local sea freight forwarders to prevent consumers in patronizing their services. The advisory also cited the 54 foreign freight forwarders/consolidators from Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East and USA that have pending complaints pertaining to Balikbayan boxes”. 

The FTEB, a DTI-CPG line bureau, regularly posts its advisory of erring foreign and local sea freight forwarders for non-delivery of Balikbayan boxes in the DTI website. The non-delivery of Balikbayan boxes usually occurs when foreign consolidators/ principal sea freight forwarders do not remit a portion of their collected charges to their accredited Philippine agents/ local sea freight forwarders to prompt the release and delivery of balikbayan boxes.

“When necessary funds are not remitted to accredited Philippine agent/ local freight forwarders, the shipment or the balikbayan boxes with the Bureau of Customs (BOC) will not be released and will not be delivered to consignees/ recipients”, Undersecretary Dimagiba explains. “Unfortunately,the DTI-FTEB records show that some incidents of undelivered balikbayan boxes involved freight forwarding companies with accreditation. Thus, we have already revoked the accreditation of D’Winner Logistics Phils. Inc. and Globalnet International Freight, Inc. and currently seeking for revocation of accreditation of Steadfast Air-Sea International Incorporated for, together with its licensed Customs Broker/Mr. Victorino C. Guilles, Jr., abandoning shipment consigned to it”, Undersecretary Dimagiba underscores. 

The DTI-FTEB implements an accreditation scheme for sea freight forwarding companies. As of 09 January 2015, the DTI-FTEB has issued the accreditation certificate to 664 sea freight forwarders, of which 57 are also engaged in handling Balikbayan box shipments. 

Undersecretary Dimagiba stresses, “The accreditation scheme helps professionalize the freight forwarding industry and the DTI will continue to strictly implement its criteria to weed out those companies that are not qualified to engage in this business”.


The DTI enjoins the public to regularly check the following websites for guidance on which sea freight forwarders they can transact with and be assured in sending their Balikbayan boxes:

• http://www.dti.gov.ph/dti/index.php/resources/listings ( list of accredited door-to-door sea freight forwarders and DTI-FTEB Advisory)
• http://customs.gov.ph/balikbayan-box-tracker-101/ (Bureau of Customs Balikbayan Box Tracker)


Source: Consumer Protection Group, Department of Trade and Industry

DTI met with Manufacturers of Milk, Bread and Instant Noodles to Decrease SRPs

The Department of Trade and Industry conducted meetings this week with the manufacturers of milk and instant noodles and the community bakers to discuss DTI’s expectation of decreases on their suggested retail prices (SRPs) for basic milk products – evaporated, condensed, powdered, pandesal and instant noodles in chicken and beef flavors.

In separate meetings, all three (3) milk manufacturers – Snow Mountain, Nestle Phils. and Alaska agreed to DTI’s report that the world price of imported skimmed milk have gone down to 67%.

During the meetings, DTI showed the milk manufacturers its computations on the impacts of the price decreases of imported skimmed milk as a major component on the prices of milk products. The report shows among others, the computations for an almost 50% or P25.56 decrease on the SRPs for powdered milk; almost 41% or P22.72 on the SRPs for evaporated milk; almost 34% or P35.14 for condensed milk.

With these computations, DTI prompted the milk manufacturers to decrease their SRPs on their milk products that are under the basic necessities category.

Nestle responded that they are now in the process of doing their own computations and expects to have the results next week. Nestle said they’ll meet with DTI again next week for another discussion. On the other hand, Snow Mountain said that they would like to be on status quo – where they will remain their prices within SRPs and that they will not increase their prices at this time. Snow Mountain stressed that other price components of their products have increased, thus, their SRPs will remain the same. Freezeland has a similar stance with Snow Mountain and stated that they cannot decrease their SRPs at this time. But it asked about Nestle’s response to DTI and said that if others will decrease their prices then they will follow suit.

DTI did not receive any feedback from Fonterra. As a follow-up to its invitation for a meeting, DTI sent a letter to Fonterra requesting for its justifications on why they should maintain its current SRPs.

The Snow Mountain’s milk brands are Birch Tree (powdered, 150g) and Angel (evaporated, 410ml); Nestle’s are Bear Brand (powdered, 150g) and Nido Fortified (powdered, 160g); Freezeland’s are Alaska (condensed, 300ml; evaporated, 370ml; powdered, 150g), Milkmaid (condensed, 300ml), Alpine (evaporated, 370 ml).

The community bakers explained that when LPG prices were increased, they did not increase their prices on pandesal. However, they were a bit surprised when DTI showed its computations on why pandesal prices should go down when there was already a drop of LPG prices up to P286.51 from January 2014 up to January 2015. The community bakers said that they will discuss this development to their members and will meet again with DTI next week.

Initially, the bakers said that they can have two (2) options in responding to DTI’s call to decrease prices. One is to decrease the price of a piece of pandesal by P0.15 or add a weight of 2 grams to a piece.

DTI also met with Nissin Monde, makers of Lucky Me instant noodles in chicken and beef flavors. Again, DTI showed its computations to them which show that there should be a P0.20 decrease per pack. Nissin Monde said that they’ll have their own computations. 

DTI met with media this afternoon who were waiting for meeting updates. DTI underscored that manufacturers are saying that they cannot decrease their SRPs because of the impacts of port congestion to their businesses, DTI responds that these expenses, which they say are due to port congestion can be claimed as deductible expenses for tax purposes or as input VAT with proper documentation.

DTI is still optimistic that manufacturers of basic milk, bread and instant noodles can and will decrease their SRPs for their products. If they will not follow DTI’s heed, then they will go through the DTI process of justifying their costs, to which DTI will be guided by the Price Act or RA 7581.

DTI reminds the industry that the Price Act is valid and constitutional where profiteering is specified as an illegal act of price manipulation. It also commits to continue its intensified price monitoring activities on basic and prime goods. DTI also commits to sustain its open communication with the industries to assist them in practicing fair business and to ensure consumer welfare.

DTI will also look at the possibility of Pinoy Tasty’s price rollback.



Source: Consumer Protection Group, Department of Trade and Industry

IGACOS CONSUMER GROUP DISCUSSED RIGHTS AND ISSUES

The IGaCoS Consumers Association (ICA) discussed consumer welfare promotion, consumer rights and related issues during its second general assembly last January 20, 2015 at the SP Building, City Hall Compound, Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS).  

Nineteen members of said consumer organization composed mostly of representatives from the elderly group and barangay officials discussed with Mr. Delvin M. Santos of DTI-Davao del Norte Provicial Office - Consumer Welfare and Trade Regulation Division various consumer rights and privileges under the Price Act, Senior Citizens Act and the Persons with Disabilities Act. Mr. Santos also informed the group of the various requirements in securing a sales promo permit and which type of promos require permission from DTI.

Delvin Santos of DTI-Davao del Norte shared information on consumer rights and privileges to ICA Members

The activity also served as a venue for several members to clarify issues regarding certain provisions of law especially on the Senior Citizens Act. One example was the query raised on the discounts on taxi fares, since some taxi drivers refuse to give discounts to a senior citizen passenger traveling with non-senior citizen passengers.

The ICA President clarified certain issues on Senior Citizen benefits and privileges

The group urged government to recognize official representation of the ICA to public hearings concerning certain consumer issues. They also recommended the replication of creation of consumer organizations at the barangay level.

With the ICA’s invaluable contribution in safeguarding consumer welfare in Samal Island, DTI Davao del Norte is hoping to organize more consumer groups such as this in other cities and municipalities in the province to create more empowered DavNor consumers.

ICA was organized in 2012 through the partnership of public and private sectors in the Island Garden City of Samal with the Department of Trade and Industry – Davao del Norte. Its primary task is to promote consumer welfare in the city through consumer empowerment. By far, it has already conducted several information dissemination sessions through the Advocates for Consumer Empowerment (ACE) for highschool students and Barangay Advocates for Consumer Empowerment (B-ACE) Program for barangay officials throughout the island.

ICA Members strike a pose to culminate the organization's second general assembly