It’s not called a “basket”, but it looks like it. On its website, Carrefour offers an “anti-inflation challenge”: 30 essential products for less than thirty euros. According to industry expert Olivier Dauvers, System U will launch its own this Wednesday with around 150 products. In short, the “collective action” requested again on Monday by the Minister in charge of Commerce, Olivia Grégoire, obviously failed.
During an interview with Europa 1, he called on distributors to “not make things messy”. “If they don’t accept, he also said, I would be very sorry.” The ace. Although several distributors have been ready “in principle”, some of them did not wait for the minister. And according to our information, Carrefour has decided that this “collective action” will take place without him.
To listen to Olivia Grégoire on Monday, the contours of her project were not yet well defined. He spoke of a basket “of around fifty products, at low prices, but not at cost price”, which would be aimed at “a family with children”… He mentioned “a maximum national price” and explained the need to “preserve the right to competition among distributors” and also to “preserve suppliers”.
“Let’s leave the people whose job it is!”
The few meetings that have been organized since then have not allowed much progress to be made, says one participant, describing “a project that is constantly changing” and becoming “overmanaged”. He advocates “a flexible system”, with brands free to do what they want.
On the part of the distributors, we are told by the Federation of Commerce and Distribution, “there is no principled opposition or overflowing enthusiasm.” But the profession denounces “a contradiction” with on the one hand a Descrozaille law, which it considers inflationary, and on the other this anti-inflation basket project. It also underlines the bad timing that is expected for the entry into force of this basket. Olivia Grégoire mentioned “maybe early March”, but March 1 will be the official date for the end of trade negotiations between distributors and suppliers and prices are likely to change. “This poses a problem on a purely practical level,” confirms an actor in the sector, who believes that all this “does a bit” the government’s communication operation. “You have to leave the people who have their turn!”, We asserted in the entourage of a head of large distribution.
Source: BFM TV
