“We must force” the multinationals that supply daily consumer products to supermarkets “to return to the negotiating table to lower prices,” because for now “they are killing,” said Michel Biero, executive director of purchasing at Lidl.
Every year, supermarkets negotiate with their industrial suppliers the new conditions under which they will buy their products. Negotiations for 2023, finalized on March 1, resulted in an average rise of around 10%.
The government will gather the heavyweights of the distribution sector in Paris on Thursday; a second meeting with the industrialists is to take place at an indeterminate date. He wants to put pressure on distributors and manufacturers to resume trade negotiations, because the cost of certain raw materials has been falling for several months, without much impact on supermarket prices.
Decrease Taken at Margins
However, negotiations for purchases for the second half of the year have begun at Leclerc, according to what the president of the strategic committee of the E.Leclerc centers, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, said at the end of April.
But today “they are playing dead”, said Mr. Biero, “there is only one industrialist who, when I speak with you, came to see me spontaneously to tell me: ‘Let’s lower the price’, it is (the) great French ham manufacturer Fleury Michon.” If “we don’t find pre-crisis prices, prices must fall, because many indicators are green,” he continued, citing freight costs and prices for energy, wheat and rapeseed.
Source: BFM TV
