2024-10-02 13:00:00
On September 23, Intermarché, Auchan and Casino (which includes Monoprix and Franprix), joined forces to form “Aura Retail”. A combination of purchases over ten years, which officially aims to “develop partnerships with the agricultural world and French industrial players in the long term”, and which unofficially risks undermining French food sovereignty to vanity by aiming for low prices and big margins.
The growing growth that we have experienced in recent years has created a sense of loss that worries the distribution giants. While Leclerc has been nibbling on market share over its competitors since 2023, reaching, according to LSA magazine forecasts, a 24.6% market share for 2024, three food distributors have taken out “Aura Retail” from answered. Normally, the idea is simple: take refuge abroad to avoid being blocked by French laws, buy a quantity of products at low prices from major foreign suppliers, and resell it all in France, including nice dreams. In doing so, French consumers should be happy because prices will fall, and large distribution groups will also line their pockets.
So, what are people asking for? The answer, too, is simple: respect your farmers and protect your food sovereignty.
Such a union necessarily raises the question of ethics and the quality of the products that have been selected, because Aura Retail will act as a wringer to attract money to them at the lowest price. Although the agricultural conflicts continue to be one after the other and the negotiations have been going full speed lately, this new group showed the arrival of heavy weapons and decided to put an end to the talks.
In fact, “three shopping centers” will be the destination for food products, posted to Intermarché. While the department “Aura Retail International Food Services” will be based in Brussels, with the aim of negotiating “with multinational industrial groups for the provision of international services”, the department “Aura Retail International Non-Food Services” intended for the sale of services to non-food suppliers, will be located in Luxembourg and will be managed by Auchan. Therefore, even if the group has good intentions and wants to participate with farmers and consumers, the message is clear: everything except France.
As reported by AFP, the National Association of Food Industries (Ania) responded perfectly, through its president Jean-François Loiseau: “While the first common concern should be to strengthen our food sovereignty by accepting the construction of the charge (…) throughout. the food chain, the distributor is the proof of why the lowest price to grab a few points of market share from their competitors. And to warn: “If we don’t correct the situation quickly, the problem of international purchasing companies, which set the framework of French law, will not only concern large companies but will soon be extended to ETI and SMEs”.
This practice of central purchasing, which has been in France since 2014, until then tends to last only for four years. The duration of this new partnership, in addition to the number of brands invited, is unprecedented. Especially since a press release published by the companies Auchan and Intermarché explains that this French food association will join the European powerhouse Everest. The latter is the origin of the German group Edeka and the Dutch Picnic, while in the Netherlands. But that’s not all, because the Epic company is still in the know. For Challengers, it’s “a way to combat the coming merciless price war”. For Ania, it is a clear and simple environment of the French EGAlim rules, which are supposed to “bring balance to commercial relations in the agricultural and food sector”.
Faced with such resources, only the largest suppliers will be able to get the job done. So we risk seeing, again and again, the smallest agricultural cooperatives reduced to nothingness in the face of economic behemoths and the siren call of foreigners.
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