2023-09-02 13:50:25
Ophélie Artaud / Photo credit: Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
Thursday, following a meeting with manufacturers and representatives of large retailers, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, announced that the prices of 5,000 references in stores would not increase or even drop. But on the consumer side, inflation continues and shopping is more and more complicated for some French people. In May, distributors and manufacturers had already met, at the request of Bercy, to renegotiate the prices of food products, without this leading to a real drop in prices. Guest of Europe 1, Michel Biero, executive director of purchasing and marketing at Lidl, is clear: according to him, “we must legislate”.
National brands “did not play the game”
“Last spring, the government said that the 75 biggest national brands had to be put around the table to rediscuss prices. In France, there is therefore a law which does not exist anywhere else in the world and which says that national brands must be negotiated no later than March 1 of each year. This year, due to the inflationary context and the fact that the prices of materials have fallen sharply, the government had asked multinationals to come around the table to lower prices, but it is clear that six months later, absolutely nothing has happened”, recalls Michel Biero. “Of the 75 multinationals cited, only a dozen have played the game.”
Therefore, for the executive director of purchasing and marketing at Lidl, the only solution is to “legislate”. “The simple fact of saying it is not enough and is not a law. The proof, they did nothing. Those who answered us told us that the negotiations would take place in March 2024”, explains Michel Biero.
According to him, “Bruno Le Maire has made very strong commitments” by announcing that he would “legislate to bring forward the deadline, no longer to March 1 but to December 31, and by launching a parliamentary mission to modify the rules of negotiations on national brands, and for them to take place throughout the year, as is the case with distributor brands”, he concludes at the microphone of Europe 1. Measures which would allow “reductions in rates from January 2024”, said Bruno Le Maire.
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