Amsterdam grocer De Aanzet prices goods twice, normal and 'true', and redirects the gap

The New Yorker reported in 2022 that in late 2020 De Aanzet, a grocery in downtown Amsterdam, began showing two prices on potatoes, peppers, bananas, bread and other items. Tomatoes cost a normal €3.75 per kilo but a 'true' €3.97; the €0.22 difference stood for carbon emissions, worker underpayment, and water and land use. The true prices were calculated by True Price, an Amsterdam nonprofit founded in 2012.

Shoppers can compare the 'true price gap' across products, so an apple with a €0.05 gap looks more responsible than one with a €0.50 gap. A shopper may pay the true price, in which case De Aanzet redirects the extra money to projects meant to remediate the harm. Owner Maarten Rijninks says his organic products look cheaper once true prices are included.

Cheap supermarket prices only look cheap because environmental and social costs are left off the books.

Showing the gap per product turns an abstract externality into a number shoppers can compare.

A voluntary payment lets customers act without the store forcing a price rise.

Using a third-party nonprofit's calculation gives the figures some independence from the shop.

Making an externality visible at the point of sale lets cleaner products look cheaper and gives buyers a way to act.

Rijninks said business had increased by about five percent and many customers like the system. He admits the data is imperfect: True Price sometimes uses regional averages, and a customer paying the true price for a banana might fund irrigation at a spinach farm. He planned more targeted projects and wider product coverage, and an association of organic grocers planned a pilot across Dutch stores. In earlier work for Tony's Chocolonely, True Price calculated its average true cost of cocoa at €7.93 per kilogram in 2013 against an industry average of €14.17, falling to €4.52 by 2017.