A large discount supermarket in Germany has raised the prices of some of its products to reflect their real cost on people’s health and the environment.

The Guardian reports that the Penny chain has embarked on a week-long experiment in all 2,150 of its stores, raising the price on a range of nine products, mainly dairy and meat, to reflect what experts from two universities have deemed to be their true cost, in relation to their effect on soil, climate, water use and health.

The “wahre Kosten” or “real costs” campaign has seen the price of wiener sausages rise from €3.19 ($3.50) to €6.01, mozzarella go up by 74% to €1.55, and fruit yoghurt increase by 31% from €1.19 to €1.56.The awareness promotion week is taking place in conjunction with academics from the Nuremberg Institute of Technology and the University of Greifswald. It was triggered by consumer researchers who believe that price tags in supermarkets in no way reflect the true environmental or long-term health costs of producing the foodstuffs and getting them on to retailers’ shelves.

Maasdamer cheese, which is popular in Germany, has risen by 94% to €4.84, because the scientists calculated hidden costs of 85 cents for climate-harming emissions such as methane and CO2, as well as 76 cents for damage to the soil from intensive farming and animal feed production, 63 cents for the effect of pesticides used, including their impact on the health of farmers, and 10 cents for pollution of groundwater through the use of fertilizer.

“We wish to create an awareness around the hidden environmental costs of groceries,” Penny’s chief operating officer, Stefan Görges, told German media. “We need to put out the uncomfortable message that the prices of our foodstuffs which are accrued along the supply chain in no way reflect the environmental on-costs.”