“In February, we measured an increase of 0.6% compared to 2021, in March we are at 1.5%. This movement will grow as food manufacturers have generally obtained sell their products more expensive to supermarkets, following the latest commercial negotiations, which ended on March 1.
The price of certain foodstuffs explodes
Agro-industrialists have new additional costs to pass on with the war in Ukraine – a leading agricultural producer prevented from exporting – and the avian flu which is decimating farms. The price of many ingredients is soaring: flour, oils, wheat, milk, eggs and meat etc.
Butter – “essential, we put it everywhere” – was at 7.50 euros per kilo at the end of March, assures Didier Boudy, who chairs the federation bringing together bakery-pastry manufacturers (FEB). “In October-November, we were counting on 5 euros and two years ago, we were at 3.50 euros. »
A difficult situation for breeders
“Everything has been shattered since the war in Ukraine,” notes Frédéric Chartier, notably at the head of a farm of 40,000 free-range chickens in the Côtes-d’Armor. By July, he estimates that feeding his poultry will cost 500 euros more per day, or 15,000 euros more per month.
It would therefore be necessary to “increase the selling price by an average of 1.35 cents per egg, which is really substantial”. Manufacturers are also hit by the rise in energy, transport and packaging.
Soaring prices hard to follow
Emily Mayer anticipates “5% in total” average price increase in supermarkets, or “the level observed in 2008”. An average that masks disparities depending on the product: pasta has already increased a lot, by 13% compared to 2021, oils by 7.4%, flour by 7.1%, sugar by 4.2%, lists Emily Mayer, and the movement might continue.
