2023-12-30 14:00:37
The « shrinkflation » is becoming more and more widespread and now affects several products. It is growing and tends to become a disguised scam rule, used in the name of inflation. However, the government decides to react! Bruno Le Maire already has a finalized text to guide the process.
But what is it exactly? There « shrinkflation » is a tolerated practice which consists of reducing the weight of a product for sale, without lowering its price. But why this? You should know that with inflation, the prices of inputs have increased sufficiently, which should lead to an increase in the price of the final product for sale, to allow producers to compensate for the additional cost.
In other words, it is a question of raising the price to compensate for the shortfall due to the increase in costs for the producer, but also for the distributor. So far, the process seems reasonable. Except that some manufacturers are increasing the price at the same time!
Shrinkflation: a draft law already notified to the European Commission
“It’s a scam, it’s scandalous”, especially since no notice is given on the packaging to inform the consumer, Bruno Le Maire had already reacted last September. Faced with the proliferation of the practice, the latter has just taken action to put an end to it! According to BFM Business, the government has already notified the European Commission of a bill relating to more scrupulous supervision of the practice. From now on, it will be, in the absence of the producer, up to the distributor to mention the weight reduction “directly on the packaging or on a label attached to or placed near this product”underlines BFM Business which reveals having had access to the text retained by Bercy.
The statement that must be made “visibly and legibly”, “that is to say with characters of the same size as that used to indicate the price of the product”, must specify that “the quantity sold increased from X to Y and its price increased by x% or x euros”details the media. “Prepackaged foodstuffs of variable quantity and non-prepackaged foodstuffs (bulk) are not affected”however, specifies the bill, cited by the same source.
Sanctions ranging from 3,000 euros to 15,000 euros
In the sanction part, it would be provided that breaches “will be liable to an administrative fine the amount of which may reach 3,000 euros for a natural person and 15,000 euros for a legal entity”. Note that the law should come into force around April 1, according to projections by Bercy which expects its publication in the official journal at the end of March, if the European Commission does not make any comments that would delay the procedure. That said, initially, only stores “whose sales area is greater than 400 m² are concerned”.
But its expansion, or even its generalization, will occur to even affect manufacturers by 2026, government representatives suggest. “The only realistic option in the short term is to make distributors bear this obligation”explains, for its part, to BFM Business, the office of the Minister of Commerce, which highlights the European legal framework to be respected.
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