The “anti-inflation quarter” extended until the end of the year

2023-06-06 08:52:46

Congratulations, and push. On Monday evening, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, asked the agri-food manufacturers to speed up negotiations to bring down prices, while congratulating the distributors for agreeing to extend the “anti-quarter quarter” operation. inflation” until the end of the year. She was due to stop on June 15.

Since March 15 and for an initial period of three months, most distributors had agreed to sell a selection of products at the “lowest possible price”. A formula giving them great freedom of maneuver. “I salute the commitment of the distributors who have all agreed to extend until the end of 2023 the anti-inflation quarter which was to end on June 15. This is good news for consumers,” the Minister wrote on Twitter.

List of bad students and taxation

On the other hand, the negotiations with the industrialists “are not going fast enough”, estimated the minister on France 5 Monday evening, adding that “certain industrialists, certain large industrial multinationals play the clock”, and recalling that the 75 largest industrialists of agri-food companies have undertaken to reopen trade negotiations with distributors. “To date, there are two or three who have done it”, according to Bruno Le Maire, citing the distributors.

“I will bring together the agri-food manufacturers and the representatives of the distributors in the coming days”, announced the Minister, specifying that if negotiations did not open before June 15, they would have “no effect on the prices in September and October”. As a reminder, the rise in consumer prices rose to 5.1% in May over one year, but that of food products still reached 14.1%.

“Before the end of June, I will publish the list of all the agri-food manufacturers who have played the game and the list of the agri-food manufacturers who have refused to return to the negotiating table and who have not did not want to lower retail prices while wholesale prices are falling, ”warned Bruno Le Maire.

I salute the commitment of the distributors who have all agreed to extend until the end of 2023 the “anti-inflation quarter” which was to end on June 15. This is good news for consumers. @oliviagregoire #ThisYou pic.twitter.com/80R483j5Yt

— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) June 5, 2023

In addition, “we will use the tax tool to seek from the margins of the large industrialists, which are high and which are recovering, the prices that they did not want to give to consumers during the spring trade negotiations”, has he warned.

Dialogue of the deaf with industrialists

The cost of certain raw materials has been falling for several months, without this being passed on. “The drop in certain raw materials must be reflected in the price consumers pay,” Bruno Le Maire explained to “Echos” last month. A point of view shared by Thierry Cotillard, the boss of Intermarché. “We have butter which is at -60%, we have maritime freight which is at -80%, so we would like to be able to pass on (this drop)” to the prices on the shelves, he had declared, in May, on France Info. The mail that the distributors sent to the manufacturers to “obtain price reductions” remained a dead letter, he was sorry.

The latest trade negotiations were completed on March 1 and resulted in an average increase of around 10% in the prices paid by supermarkets to their industrial suppliers. Still according to Thierry Cotillard, food inflation is likely to experience “a peak of 17%” at the end of June.

Source AFP