Negotiations with food manufacturers: the government again pinpoints supermarkets

by time news

Rising costs of energy, transport, raw materials… This context generates “unprecedented tensions on agrifood companies”, worries the government. So much so that he asked this Thursday for a “moratorium on logistical penalties” from large retail chains. He once again points the finger at the responsibility of supermarkets: they are accused of abusing the “logistical penalties” they inflict on their agro-industrial suppliers when they do not deliver their products on time.

At the beginning of September, the powerful agricultural union FNSEA had demanded the opening of an investigation by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) on logistical penalties, denouncing an attitude “without faith or law of certain distributors when they apply these sanctions.

The Ministry of Agriculture then estimated that some distributors were diverting the use of these penalties “to restore their financial health (…) on the backs of their suppliers”. In a press release, the government refers to “reported and observed abuses by several large food retail chains”. The authorities note that “several administrative injunction procedures under financial penalties have been initiated since February” to ensure that practices comply with the law.

Each side passes the buck

Negotiations between distributors and manufacturers, which take place each year to determine the purchase price of a large part of the products subsequently sold in supermarkets, were reopened after the start of the war in Ukraine to take inflation into account. production and operating costs, which deteriorate the financial health of many companies.

They drag on, each side passing the buck, manufacturers accusing distributors of not taking into account the increase in production costs in their purchase price, distributors accusing manufacturers of not sufficiently justifying price increases requested.

The situation is all the more complex as consumers, in times of inflation, are very attentive to the prices of the foodstuffs they put in their carts and turn to the stores where they think they will find the best deals.

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