This is fictional sample content, created to demonstrate the layout. The places, people and figures in it are invented. It is not reporting.
The requirement itself is modest. Retailers above a size threshold publish what they already display on the shelf edge, in a format a computer can read.
The objection is not to publication but to comparison. A machine-readable feed makes third-party price trackers trivial to build, and those trackers will not stop at the 260 items.
Two trade bodies have written to the department asking for a delay and a narrower list. Both letters make the same argument: that unit prices without context mislead.
The counter-argument is that shelf edges already show unit prices, and that a shopper comparing two shops by hand is doing exactly what the feed automates.
The conversation