Will food prices soar next month? The president of the Système U brand, Dominique Schelcher, considered that it was “exaggerated” to speak of a “red march” for the inflation of products in supermarkets, because the price increases “will spread over time, ”he explained on Radio Classique on Tuesday. The day before, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had assured that there was “no reason” for prices to ignite in March.
“He is right to say that there will be no red march, it is an exaggeration to say that”, added Dominique Schelcher, head of the 4th food distribution brand in France, behind, in the order, E.Leclerc, Carrefour and Intermarché.
The increases “will be spread over time”
“We are in the middle of negotiations with the manufacturers and, from March, we will unfortunately pass on a series of price increases which will be the result of these negotiations”, he explained. “But they will spread over time and the month of March will not be redder than any other. »
Each year, supermarkets negotiate with their suppliers in the agri-food industry the prices and sales conditions at which they buy from them a large part of the products they will sell. The new prices are gradually passed on to the shelves.
These negotiations, which must be concluded by March 1 at the latest, are traditionally tense, but they are all the more so this year in an inflationary context. (energy, transport or raw materials) which weighs on the margins of all the players.
Towards the abandonment of the anti-inflation basket?
“We hope for a decline in prices from the second half,” said Dominique Schelcher on Radio Classique, regretting that “transparency is”, according to him, “not at the rendezvous of the negotiations on the side of the industrialists”, suspected by their distribution customers to exaggerate the increase in their charges in order to sell at a higher price.
Dominique Schelcher also indicated having been received Monday at Bercy to discuss in particular the anti-inflation basket, a government project which is facing growing skepticism.
The day before, Bruno Le Maire had declared that he did not know if the discussions with the distributors would succeed, opening the door to the abandonment of this “basket” composed of products from around fifty categories “at the best quality/price ratio”. “I have set March 15 as the deadline to find together an operational solution to this increase in food prices and consumer prices in general”, detailed Bruno Le Maire.