2023-09-16 16:17:00
The price of cheese in supermarkets has seen price increases significantly higher than average inflation. Specialist in price analyzes and comparisons, the CEO of PingPrice judges these increases abnormal. “We are seeing an increase greater than inflation with an average of +26% for cheeses in general. This is clearly not justified.”
Of course, milk and energy prices, as well as wage indexation, have weighed heavily on cheese making, but when we analyze price variations, many questions arise. “Distributors run major campaigns to highlight the efforts they make to maximize the purchasing power of their customers, but above all they put pressure on brands to lower their margins. Distributors do not make the same effort on their own margins and even take advantage of this to increase the profits they make on their own brands. This is particularly evident at Delhaize and Colruyt, whose prices for private label brands (Delhaize, 365, Boni, Everyday) are increasing more than the national brands sold through them. However, it is the opposite at Carrefour and Cora where it is the national brands which are increasing the most. Individually the prize goes to Colruyt where Cheddar has increased by 55%, and Delhaize which, apart from the little lions, has increased the price of grated Emmental by more than 50%.”
Christophe Echement also finds it strange that prices do not evolve in a similar way in the different brands. “If the impact of raw material and energy prices is to be passed on to the shelf price, this should be done in the same way and in similar proportions across all retailers. However, it is not the case. We can therefore legitimately wonder if some are not taking advantage of the crisis to increase their margins. There are significant disparities between distributors in terms of increases, with Delhaize being the one which overall increases its prices the most (31%).”
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Proof by example of these abnormal variations, the private label pie chart increases by 43.20% at Delhaize and 48% at Carrefour, while the increase is limited to 12.10% at Carrefour. The same goes for Père Joseph, whose price is increasing by 4.07% at Colruyt while it is up by almost 25% among its competitors.
Regarding the prices of milk, butter and creams, we see that, overall, prices have increased less than those of cheese with an average of 16%. “Note that Carrefour does better by limiting increases to 9% on average, with a status quo for their distributor brand which can be explained by their anti-inflation basket/purchasing power actions. Campina brand milk, on the other hand, increased much more than the average among all distributors (+30%), unlike Fairebel milk, whose increases remained in line with inflation.”
At the level of 20% Mg culinary creams, strong disparities exist between distributors concerning their brands, where Delhaize, Colruyt and Cora increase their price by more than 35%, Carrefour has decreased by 9%, undoubtedly following the taking into account of this product in their anti-inflation basket this also applies to salted butter.
”We also realize that the prices of Balade Culinary Cream 20% fat or Carlsbourg Beurre de Baratte are negotiated with the producers and that the increases lead to an identical price with the distributors and that therefore the increases are quite similar. We can still see a nice increase in the price of Solo margarine, at all distributors with a good rating for Cora which already had a slightly higher price than the others.”
Although the peak of increases was reached in February/March, we have not yet noted a real drop in prices. “At most a few slight reductions on certain products. We even expect that the increases, less marked, will continue in the coming months. Renegotiations will be carried out in the coming weeks with suppliers and the real drop in prices will not will probably not be a reality before next March”, concludes Christophe Echement.
Increase in prices of dairy products in mass distribution ©IPM Graphics
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