Agri-food groups had obtained at the end of the annual trade negotiations concluded on March 1, 2023 an average increase of 9% in the purchase price of their products by supermarkets, the mediator of agricultural trade relations told AFP on Wednesday. According to Thierry Dahan, who cites figures from the Annual Trade Negotiations Observatory – a “working group” bringing together representatives of distributors and manufacturers, the latter had asked for an average 14% increase to pass on production costs also in rise.
The 9% increase, initially assessed at 10% by manufacturers, was added to that obtained following negotiations reopened in 2022 in order to compensate for the surge in raw materials linked to the war in Ukraine. In total, manufacturers have thus obtained from supermarkets a revaluation of 16% of the purchase price of their products over one year, from March 2022 to March 2023, according to the observatory.
Thierry Dahan stressed to AFP the unprecedented nature of this double-digit increase which, according to him, allows manufacturers to “rebuild their margins” after eight years of deflation. This variation “is not a measure of inflation” on the food shelves, he notes, even if this strong revaluation has necessarily “weighed on prices from March (2022, editor’s note), and will continue to weigh again this year”, until it is fully passed on by supermarkets. The 9% increase “is explained by the full consideration of the rise in agricultural prices, as provided for by law (Egalim, Ed.), and the partial consideration of other costs (packaging, energy, wages, transport, etc.)”, details the observatory.
Since the end of 2002, however, the prices of certain agricultural raw materials (wheat, vegetable oils) or energy have tended to stabilize or even fall. These same manufacturers therefore agreed last week, under pressure from the government, to reopen negotiations with distributors to try to contain food price inflation estimated by INSEE at 15% over one year in April. .