2023-09-20 13:00:06
“For 50 euros, there is nothing left in the cart”, “How expensive is it”… These little sentences that customers exchange at the back of her cash register, Carine them “hears all the time now”. This cashier from a hypermarket in the west of France (she did not wish to give her name) is particularly well placed to observe the impact of the rise in food prices on households: + 11.2% in one year to the end of August, + 19.9% in two years, according to INSEE. « SOn my conveyor belt, I see less red meat and more chicken strips and pork trays, but also more promotional items. »
And this inflation watchdog tells how customers manage their loyalty card funds as closely as possible to try to cushion the shock a little, crowding into the aisles at the slightest promotional offer.
In the offices of this same hypermarket, Hélène (who prefers to remain anonymous) scrolls through her Excel tables. His verdict is final: “People are paying more attention and prioritizing food to the detriment of everything else. The store sells many more private labels and first-price brands and fewer hygiene and maintenance products. »
“Exasperation” and “anger”
A phenomenon that appeared from the first tensions on prices, which increases as inflation compresses budgets. At the start of the school year, the CEO of Carrefour, Alexandre Bompard, warned that consumers were depriving themselves of products “essential” such as “feminine protection, diapers, toothpaste” who show declines in sales “double digits” (Franceinfo, Tuesday August 29). Increase in fuel prices, property tax, regulated electricity tariff (15% in February, then 10% in August), groceries, etc. “All this is a lot and we are starting to feel exasperation and anger in rural areas which remind me of the social climate of the summer of 2018, before the “yellow vest” movement”, warns Dominique Schelcher, the boss of Système U, who still expects inflation “around 6% or 7% at the end of the year on food products”. Nearly one in two French people find it difficult to make ends meet, compared to 37% in January 2022, according to an Appinio survey for the magazine LSA from August 29.
Faced with the explosion of prices, the French do not have fifty solutions. They limit their purchases. “They go out less, spend less on leisure activities and cut back on their savings in order to pay their energy bills, fill their fridge and fill up with gas”already estimated in May panelist Circana. In the first half of the year, supermarket sales fell by 4.1% in volume compared to the same period of 2022. A record. “The intensity of the drop in food sales clearly shows that it has also become an adjustment variable,” notes Philippe Moati, professor of economics and co-founder of L’Observatoire Société & Consommation.
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