2023-06-22 11:57:49
Inflation continues, but no one is spared. “We see that the two links of industry and distribution have partly cushioned the shock” inflationary in 2022, Philippe Chalmin, president of the Observatory of price formation and margins of companies, told AFP. food products (OFPM) ahead of the presentation of the annual report of this body, Thursday at the Ministry of Agriculture.
That is to say that manufacturers and supermarket chains did not pass on to their customers all of the inflation that they themselves suffered and therefore “crushed” their margins during this period. .
“Basic products” subject to competition more spared
According to an INSEE economic note, published on June 15, the prices at which farmers sell their production (excluding fruit and vegetables) increased by 23% in 2022 over one year. At the same time, the selling prices of manufacturers and those of distributors increased to a lesser extent, by 16% and 7% respectively (excluding fresh products).
The observatory analyzes the selling prices at the exit of farms, food factories and supermarkets. And focuses more particularly on “basic” products, little processed (bread, ground beef, butter, noodles…). These are, explains Mr. Chalmin, “symbolic products on which the competition has played very strongly, everyone looking at each other” so as not to offer a price that would make the consumer rush to the sign next door.
Regarding ground beef, for example, Philippe Chalmin observes that the price has increased by around 11% “only” for the consumer, while the cost of the cow at the entrance to the slaughterhouse has jumped by almost 33%.
No improvement for farmers
However, the crushing of margins does not seem to be widespread. The INSEE models indeed suggest “a marked reconstitution of the margins” of the agri-food industries from the second quarter of 2022, while 2021 had been marked by a “compression” of these margins. The branch’s margin rate has thus “clearly recovered over the course of 2022”. The question of corporate margins has become central in recent months, both for consumers, whose purchasing power has shrunk considerably with inflation, and for the Ministry of the Economy, which has repeatedly called for all light on the profits of the various players in the food chain.
What “surprised” Philippe Chalmin is that the sharp increase in their selling prices has not led to an “extraordinary improvement” for farmers, some of whom still do not cover their production costs, in particular cattle breeders for meat. Since the creation of the observatory in 2010, the latter “have never covered the reality of their production costs”, unlike cereal growers, pork or milk producers for whom “there are good and bad years.
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