Supply and regulate: The price regulatory warehouses in Lisbon (1918-1925)

Abstract

World War I led public authorities to intervene more incisively in food supply chains, an action that continued beyond the end of the conflict. Examples of this continued intervention were the price regulatory warehouses for essential goods, institutions designed with the dual purpose of facilitating access to basic foodstuffs for the most disadvantaged classes and regulating the prices of these products, directly competing with retail trade. This article analyzes the creation and expansion of these warehouses in the city of Lisbon between 1918, the year when the first establishments were set up under the management of the Obra de Assistência 5 de Dezembro, and 1925, when the government decided their progressive transformation into consumer cooperatives.