The senators adopted Wednesday in committee the bill of the Renaissance deputy Frédéric Decrozaille aimed at reviewing the balance of power between industrialists and mass distribution. However, they decide to suspend the obligation imposed on distributors to sell food products with a minimum margin of 10%. The text will be examined in the hemicycle in first reading from next Wednesday.
“The inflationary context completely changes the game,” said centrist rapporteur Anne-Catherine Loisier to AFP, for whom it is necessary to “integrate” the consumer into the complex equation of relations between suppliers and distributors.
A “provocation” for the FNSEA
It is for this reason in particular that the senators have put the question of the threshold for resale at a loss back on the table. The text of the National Assembly extends until 2026 this provision obliging distributors to sell food products with a minimum margin of 10%, which expires in April. The senators propose to suspend this measure for two years, until January 1, 2025, which could correspond to the period of inflation.
The FNSEA immediately cried out for “provocation”, considering that this initiative “risked having dramatic effects for the entire sector” by relaunching “a price war” on food products. This device “has absolutely not worked”, retorts the rapporteur, for whom it is “about 600 million euros taken each year from the pocket of the consumer” without benefiting the farmers.
Towards a framework for promotions on hygiene products
Another initiative of the senators: they want to extend to all consumer products, in particular hygiene and cleaning products, the supervision of promotions on food products. According to the commission, this measure would have “a minimal inflationary effect, much lower” than the purchasing power gains that the suspension of the SRP + 10 would represent. For Anne-Catherine Loisier, it is a question of protecting a French sector, whose crisis of the Covid has shown the importance.
With regard to the flagship measure of the Decrozaille bill, experimentally modifying the balance of power between suppliers and industrialists in the food industry, and mass distribution, the senators “framed” the device. In particular, they provided that in the absence of an agreement on March 1 between supplier and distributor, the price applicable during the one-month notice of termination should take into account “the economic situation of the market” (inflation, average increases accepted by competitors).