Within days, the drink brand’s distribution went from 85% to “nil”, according to an industry expert.
Specialists in mass distribution call this practice delisting: when a distributor decides to no longer offer a brand for sale on its shelves. Tropicana and its fruit juices have paid the price in recent days on the shelves of Carrefour stores. Not a single bottle of the brand is sold in the group’s 750 stores, according to information from retail expert Olivier Dauvers, since confirmed by Carrefour.
Although radical, delisting nevertheless remains a recurring practice in the context of trade negotiations between food manufacturers and distributors. It is a lever in the hands of Carrefour and others to demand lower prices from their suppliers. The specialist magazine Rayon Boissons cites internal sources at the Carrefour group who report “big problem with this supplier» and «complicated negotiations“. The Tropicana brand was acquired in the summer of 2021 from PepsiCo by the French investment fund PAI Partners.
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Large retailers have been engaged in a standoff with manufacturers for several weeks. The prices demanded for the goods in the framework of the current commercial negotiations explode in an inflationary context and the distributors try to negotiate them downwards. The same Olivier Dauvers has been making headlines in recent days with his fear of a “Red March” on the consumer price front. Without denying the prospect of a rise in prices in the coming months, the players in the retail sector have nevertheless put this alarming expression into perspective.
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