Albert Heijn has started a so-called true pricing trial in three of its To Go supermarkets to raise awareness about the hidden costs of products and to stimulate sustainable consumer choices.

Based on a pricing method developed by environmental and social justice movement True Price, shoppers in Groningen, Wageningen and Zaandam are being given the option to pay either the normal price or the real price, which factors in the cost to the environment or the lack of a living wage for workers.

The trial comprises a handful of products, including a cup of coffee which if taken black will cost customers €2 or its true price of €2.08. Koffie verkeerd (coffee with a lot of milk) goes up 36 cents in price while a coffee with oat milk costs 11 cents more because of the difference in sustainable milk production.

‘We want to make it easy for customers to make healthy and sustainable choices, by informing them and by giving them the option to do so. True pricing is one way of doing that,’ Albert Heijn CEO Marit van Egmond said.

True Price director Michel Scholte said the concept will help make production chains more sustainable ‘so future generations and the most vulnerable people don’t foot the bill’.

The extra income generated by the trial will go to the Rainforest Alliance, a reforestation project in East Africa.