Inflation: in supermarkets, half of the best-selling products saw their prices drop this summer

Manufacturers’ promises about price reductions during the summer appear to have been kept. Published this Tuesday, a study carried out by panelist NielsenIQ shows that half of the best-selling products on shelves saw their labels deflate slightly between the end of June and the end of August.

In detail, the institute focused on the 20,000 consumer product references most sold in supermarkets and hypermarkets, and only on major national brands. Distributor brands, or MDD, were therefore excluded from the study (Eco or Marque Repère at E.Leclerc, Simpl or Reflets de France at Carrefour, Pâturages at Intermarché, etc.). As a result, 50.1% of the references examined, or 10,021, experienced a price drop between the beginning and the end of summer. A share which even rises to 56% for the 100 best-selling references. However, the panelist does not provide further details on the references concerned.

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However, it is unlikely that consumers will have noticed a noticeable effect on their receipts. “These drops remain relatively small (between -0.2% and -0.8% depending on the type of reference),” notes NielsenIQ, which nevertheless believes that these first, minor price drops “may suggest a more lasting trend.”

In any case, this is the government’s objective. At the end of August, Bruno Le Maire announced on the set of France 2 three measures to “definitively break the price spiral”. Including the blocking of the prices of 5,000 references, or “an average of a quarter of the references in a supermarket”, of which “the prices will not increase or will decrease”. This list, which must be drawn up by manufacturers and distributors, is not yet known. “It’s much better” than the 1,500 products concerned so far, however, declared the Minister of the Economy. In mid-July, around forty manufacturers had in fact committed to lowering the prices of certain products “from -5 to -7 or -8% from the month of July”, the delegate minister said at the time. in Commerce, Olivia Grégoire.