The week has been good for the leaders of large distribution, as demonstrated by Thierry Cotillard, at the head of the Les Mousquetaires group (Intermarché). Invited to the set of BFMTV, he returned to the recent meetings between distributors and then industrialists, on the one hand, and Bruno Le Maire and Olivia Grégoire, on the other. “I saw a very determined Minister of the Economy, he put us all in front of our responsibilities, he greeted. He told the distributors to expand our product lists and the manufacturers, the next day, to return to the negotiating table. much before.”
Thierry Cotillard also mentioned the second piece of good news from these Bercy meetings: the expansion of “anti-inflation” baskets. On the Intermarché side, the list will double from 500 to 1,000 products and will include more national brands and product families that have been hit hard by inflation in recent months, such as beauty and hygiene. “In this list we wanted to allow our consumers to do all their shopping,” he recalled, citing shampoos, detergents and even cotton as examples.
Concern about falling sales volume
If the war in Ukraine has often been cited to explain the explosion in energy or wheat prices, the president of the Les Mousquetaires group insists on the existence of other factors, such as climatic phenomena. “When mustard was very expensive, it was because we had bad harvests in Canada, which meant a shortage of raw materials, which caused prices to skyrocket,” he stressed. As I speak to you, the bad news is the poor orange harvest in Canada. Brazil and Florida that make orange juice take 50% Cocoa is the same with two bad harvests that take 40%.”
Thierry Cotillard also reacted to the expression “consumer tsunami” used earlier in the week by his counterpart Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour:
Source: BFM TV
