After an increase in the prices paid by supermarkets to their suppliers, at the end of the annual negotiations, the distributors promised not to pass on these increases “like a wall” to the consumer.
The annual negotiations, making it possible to fix the prices and the conditions under which the supermarkets obtain supplies from the manufacturers, ended Wednesday at midnight, after three months of talks. Their conclusion generally has an impact on the receipt of consumers, who have already seen food prices rise by some 14.5% over one year in February according to INSEE.
This year, the industrialists defended by the National Association of Food Industries (Ania) and the distributors gathered in the Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD) agree that the increase in prices paid by supermarkets to their suppliers is of the order of 10%.
Although the prices on the shelves will gradually increase between now and the summer following these negotiations, this estimate does not necessarily mean that the races will increase by the same amount, insofar as there are still stocks to be sold, distributors being able to also smooth inflation by reducing their margins.
“We are not going to pass on all of these increases like a wall”, said this Friday morning on franceinfo Michel-Edouard Leclerc, the president of the strategic committee of the E.Leclerc centers, leader in food distribution in France.
Still blockages with some distributors
Manufacturers had demanded “10 to 12%” increase to pass on the soaring of their production costs – energy in particular – while supermarkets cried out at the lack of transparency and denounced unjustified, even “delusional” requests.
There are still “blockages with certain distributors and some files will go to mediation”, reported Ania. However, “most companies have signed or will do so between today and tomorrow,” said the main organization in the sector.
In the event that a brand and a supplier fail to agree on the conditions of sale of a product, the mediator of agricultural trade relations, Thierry Dahan, can come into play. Even before the close of negotiations, the latter had received 70 requests for mediation, “of which more than half in the last fortnight”, he indicated this Friday, specifying that this level was similar to 2022. Of these 70 files, a dozen mediations – mainly concerning weights agribusiness heavyweights – have failed, a significant number, he says.