While the government has transformed its “anti-inflation basket” into an “anti-inflation quarter”, its first results are rather encouraging, according to the executive. “The monitoring elements show that on the products concerned (from 100 products at Cora to just under 1000 at Leclerc), the prices have stopped increasing”, underlined Tuesday to LSA the Minister Delegate responsible in particular for Trade, Olivia Grégoire .
Even if the brands offer different baskets, their average prices “have globally fallen by 5%” since the official launch of the operation on March 15. “For some players, and for some products, the drop is even greater,” adds the minister. A good result as food inflation reached 15.9% over one year in March.
To collect this data, Olivia Grégoire’s firm relied on an analysis by specialist Olivier Dauvers and panelist NielsenIQ, “relating to the price of drive-in basket products, before and after the launch” of the device. “The Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) follows [also] the evolution of the prices of the products in the baskets in connection with the distributors” and “its conclusions arrive at the same overall average” of a price reduction of 5%, completes the cabinet.
Among the products put forward by large retailers are mainly first-price references, ranging from hygiene to food. With the government’s initiative – correlated with a sharp rise in prices – the volume sales of these products are also on the rise. A pride for Olivia Grégoire: “I was keen to preserve our farmers, breeders and fishermen, who were already experiencing drops in volume in January, in particular for meat and fish.” The growth in sales in volume is thus greater than 20%, according to several groups, “even though in the first quarter of 2023, the consumption of consumer products (PGC) fell by 5%”.
Next step: renegotiations between manufacturers and distributors, which “have already started”, according to Michel-Edouard Leclerc. These discussions will determine the prices of products for the start of the school year, when the peak of food inflation is expected for the beginning of the summer. “I believe in the responsibility of the actors. It worked for the commercial solidarity pact and the anti-inflation quarter, there is no reason for the big manufacturers to be less responsible than the distributors”, specifies Olivia Grégoire.
