The supermarket chain Dirk van den Broek will freeze the prices of more than a hundred products until the end of this year. The company says it does this to keep groceries fairly affordable.

On average, a supermarket has between ten and fifteen thousand products, although Dirk notes that his supermarkets have about 7,500 different products. So this pertains to a small portion of the range whose prices are frozen.

Groceries – like many other things – have become more expensive in the past year. Prices in July were about 18.5 percent higher than in September last year, GfK calculated last week in ranking from NU.nl.

Discount chain Dirk is the first to say it wants to do something about it. Dirk says that some everyday groceries in categories such as bread, menstrual products, pasta, toilet paper, vegetables and fruit will not increase in prices this year.

“Daily grocery prices are skyrocketing and many families are also struggling with extremely high energy prices. As far as we’re concerned, that requires strict choices,” says General Manager Marcel Huizing. “That’s why we decided to tighten the belt ourselves, so we can provide groceries for everyone.”