2023-08-30 21:12:03
In an urgent situation, a radical response? Received this Wednesday morning at the Ministry of the Economy, the actors of the large distribution came out with the feeling of having been heard. Intermarché, Super U or Carrefour, had moved to Bercy with one main demand: that negotiations with the food industry begin immediately so that the prices of food products really drop from the beginning of next year. “This is the position of Bruno Le Maire and Olivia Grégoire (Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium Enterprises and Trade), confides Thierry Cotillard, president of the Groupement Les Mousquetaires. Let’s anticipate and close the negotiations on December 31 to gain three months. »
Currently, the agri-food industry and large retailers are starting their price battles at the beginning of December. The confrontation ends at the end of February and is reflected in the shopping cart of consumers over the second quarter, depending on the stocks of products held by the various brands and whose prices still depend on previous negotiations. Without a boost on the calendar, the distributors assure it: there will be no reduction in food products before next April.
“For agreements before the end of December, this supposes a start of negotiations by mid-September, assures Jacques Creyssel, the general delegate of the employers’ federation of large retailers (FCD). And an industrial agreement or a short specific law”.
Contacted, the Ministry of the Economy tempers: “Nothing is decided. We receive tomorrow (Thursday August 31) industrial. Each actor must be taken into account. We will see what is possible to do or not. But our goal is to lower prices.
Always big promotions on hygiene products?
An ambition that Bruno Le Maire, visiting Tuesday at LaREF 2023, the Medef summer university, described as “priority” while prices are slow to drop. It must be said that inflation on food products is a socially explosive subject. Especially since the government’s budgetary margins, with a debt of more than 3,000 billion euros, are reduced or even nil. Moreover, the executive has repeated it many times: “finished whatever it costs” and finished “the policy of checks”.
Two other measures are on the table: first, a moratorium on the Descrozaille law which limits the promotion of care and hygiene products and which should come into force in March 2024. Then, to give distributors and industrialists to negotiate throughout the year. A calendar already in force in Portugal. “They had 15 inflation points in January-February for the same reasons as us and they are currently at 5 points, advance Thierry Cotillard. I’m not saying that we might have had the same result in France but we might have done better if we constantly negotiated. »
In any case, on Tuesday, Bruno Le Maire, promised that “everything that can improve the situation” of food inflation “would be retained”, with a “limit”, however, not to “trim the margins” of farmers. For the meeting with manufacturers, he announced that he would ask them “to expand the number of products on which they can make efforts”, beyond the current 1,000. But above all, that he wanted to see more commit to lowering the price. Currently, they are only 35 out of 70.
He also threatened to use taxation once morest companies that would appear to make “excessive and undue margins” in a report by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) that he must receive. Finally, he warned that he would not hesitate to name them publicly.
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