If the project aimed at all large retailers does not seem to have found a favorable outcome, Carrefour is launching anyway. The distributor will launch its own “anti-inflation basket” in mid-March, made up of 200 products sold on average two euros and “at fixed prices” until mid-June, announces its CEO Alexandre Bompard in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche.
This concerns 100 “everyday” products (detergent, baby diapers, spreads, flour, biscuits, etc.) and 100 others labeled “healthy” (yogurts, eggs, fresh vegetables, bread, milk or cereals) with a Nutri-Score A and B, marketed under the Carrefour and Simpl brands, which will be sold “at blocked prices, from March 15 to June 15”, specifies the daily.
The group will launch this “essential and nutrition” basket – the composition of which was chosen during round tables with the brand’s customers – on the shelves of its 5,945 French stores in ten days, he continues. This follows the abandonment of the “project for a uniform and common basket for all brands”, mentioned in December by the Minister of SMEs Olivia Grégoire, “but since rejected by most distributors”, writes the JDD.
An investment effort of “several tens of millions of euros”
“We have found a very good agreement with the Minister” of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, said Alexandre Bompard, CEO of the group, to the newspaper. “He decided to leave everyone the freedom to define the operations of their choice”. “It was essential that all the actors be able to commit at the same time, but with full autonomy of action. The result will be all the more powerful,” he says.
For a year, Carrefour had already set up a basket of 15 fruits and vegetables sold at less than 1 euro, which gave “very good results”, according to Alexandre Bompard.
“The end of negotiations with manufacturers suggests an additional increase (in prices). It is a new violent shock for the most fragile households, ”he says. “The level of food inflation will remain in double digits until this summer, probably rising above that currently reached”, adds the CEO of Carrefour. This offer represents an investment effort of “several tens of millions of euros”, according to him.
At the beginning of February, the competitor Système U announced that it was launching its basket of “150 products at cost price”, for “an indefinite period”. Since inflation has made its return to the top of the concerns of the French, the distribution has multiplied operations, blocked prices, anti-inflation shield, the aim of which is to attract or retain customers, in the face of food inflation which has climbed by some 14.5% over one year in February, according to INSEE.