“In meal voucher, there is “restaurant”. » Thierry Marx wants to bang his fist on the table. The starred chef, president of the main employers’ union in the hotel and catering industry, Umih, asks to be received “as soon as possible” by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, while Bercy is considering perpetuating the possibility of purchasing products food at the supermarket with meal vouchers.
The law introduced in 2022 the possibility of purchasing non-directly consumable food products (flour, pasta, rice, eggs, fish, meat, etc.) in supermarkets with meal vouchers, an exemption which was to end on December 31 2023. But faced with the outcry caused by the end of the system, Bercy announced its wish to extend it to 2024, or even to make it permanent.
“A shortfall of 200 million euros for our restaurateurs”
“With its about-face on the extension of the use of meal vouchers to food products, the Government is sending a very bad signal to our profession,” he lamented in a press release this Thursday. “This title must remain a lunch aid for employees who do not have a company restaurant. It must not become a shopping cart title,” continues the chef. “I ask to be received as soon as possible by the Prime Minister to express our incomprehension, our dissatisfaction and our desire for a rapid return to the situation preceding the 2022 law,” he adds.
“In 2023, there will be a shortfall of 200 million euros for our restaurateurs,” estimates the chef, recalling “that in 2023, mass distribution saw its meal voucher market share increase by more than 6 %” when “that of restaurants decreased by 3%”. “I can clearly hear the voices expressing themselves about the usefulness of this title, in times of inflation, for everyday shopping. Inflation concerns all French people. The rise in prices also impacts our restaurateurs,” says Thierry Marx, calling on the government to “design a food voucher or a food check to fight inflation and help the most disadvantaged.”