Will sunflower oil hit our shelves soon? While the price of sunflower has fallen by 55% in the last year, the price of the product sold to the consumer is far from having followed the same trend.
According to INSEE, the oil category has seen its price increase by 1.5% in March and more than 29% in one year. Invited to BFM Business, Arnaud Rousseau, the new head of the FNSEA and president of the board of directors of the Avril group, which markets the Lesieur, Puget or Isio 4 brands in France, assures that he is not responsible for the recent increase.
“It went up very strongly, we had bought Avril at relatively reasonable prices and we didn’t pass on all the rise,” he explains. At this moment we are seeing a drop and we have lowered our sunflower oil contracts by almost 20%.
Inventories to sell and dealer margin
The main oil producer in France assures, therefore, that it has lowered its sales prices to large retailers, which would not transfer these new prices to consumers.
If supermarkets run out of stock of products bought at high prices, wouldn’t they take the opportunity to rebuild their margins in the process?
This is what the head of the Avril group suggests.
As for all agricultural raw materials, Arnaud Rousseau is this time donning the FNSEA chief’s cap to justify the recent rise in prices.
“What is driving us are the production costs on our farms, he recalls. If prices drop, we will accompany the drop, as I speak to you on our farms, we do not see a significant drop in these production costs, but when we see it, we pass it.”
Big retailers and suppliers are due to meet in June for a new round of negotiations after price increases were approved in March. Bruno Le Maire issued an ultimatum to consumer players Tuesday on BFMTV to renegotiate lower prices as soon as possible.
Source: BFM TV
