It’s a Law proposition which aims to “secure the supply of French people with consumer products” and which is causing a lot of concern in the sector. The National Assembly is studying this text on food prices, against which supermarkets are firmly opposed, fearing damage to purchasing power.
Led by Frédéric Descrozaille, Renaissance deputy for Val-de-Marne, this bill is being examined this Wednesday, January 11 in the Economic Affairs Committee, before an examination in public session scheduled for the week of January 16.
One of its objectives is to rebalance commercial relations between suppliers and supermarkets, which buy their products at prices set after tense negotiations. “This bill is made to correct this structural imbalance between producers and buyers”, advances to The Express Frederic Descrozaille. “The goal is to put value back into the supply chains that are destroying it,” said the MP.
A price increase of up to 30%?
But the text, if adopted as it stands, risks according to distributors further driving up the price of pasta, steaks or yogurts then sold on the shelves, and therefore presents an inflationary risk. The president of the E.Leclerc strategic committee, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, sounded the charge against this bill. “Deputies would now be in favor of the price increase?” he tweeted on January 5. According to him, this bill would lead to increases of “10 to 30%”.
“We must not confuse tariff and price”, retorts Frédéric Descrozaille. For the MP, “price increases between suppliers and buyers, even when they are passed on, do not have the same percentage as consumer price increases”.
In addition, “a 10 point increase in the tariff only translates into a few points for consumption”, and large retailers “can moreover absorb part of this increase”, estimates the deputy of the majority.
“A real scandal that is brewing”
The article that causes the most tension, article 3, aims to redefine the relationship between the manufacturer and its distributor client in the absence of an agreement on March 1, the deadline for these negotiations. Until now, writes Frédéric Descrozaille in the explanatory memorandum to his bill, it was generally considered that deliveries should continue “at the price of the previous year for a notice period of several months”, which did not urge the distributors to reach an agreement.
“Today, there is a legal void: if there is no agreement on this deadline, the supplier is obliged to deliver his product at the price of the previous year. It is an imbalance between the buyer and supplier”, explains Frédéric Descrozaille. But for Didier Duhaupand, president of the Mousquetaires / Intermarché interviewed by AFP, this article would make “impossible any negotiation”, since “either the new tariff requested by the industrialist is essential, or there is a pure and simple stoppage of the delivery”. Monday, January 9, Didier Duhaupand denounced a “real scandal which is brewing”, with a text which gives “all power to industrialists” in annual trade negotiations.
This Wednesday morning, on BFM Business, Frédéric Descrozaille clarified that he was introducing into his bill “a period of one month which makes it possible to define the terms of the break”. Thus, in the absence of an agreement on March 1, “either an agreement will still be reached with the mediator, or the terms of the break will be defined, with a notice period”, he indicated. .
The text also proposes to extend the framework for promotions and the resale threshold at a loss, which obliges distributors to sell food products with a minimum margin of 10%. These two measures tested under the EGalim law and supposed to guarantee a better income for farmers were to expire on April 15, 2023. “Framing promotions does not mean framing their number […] I just want to limit the very big promotions which aim to attract customers, because that destroys value”, explains Frédéric Descrozaille.