When mass distribution and agri-food lack of transparency, particularly with regard to their margin, consumer associations are sounding the alarm. Four of them challenge Emmanuel Macron in an open letter published on Wednesday, warning of “opaque profits” of companies in the context of high inflation in food prices.
The associations Foodwatch, Familles Rurales, UFC-Que Choisir and Consommation Logement Cadre de Vie (CLCV) asked the President of the Republic to “shed light on the construction of food prices”, also calling for “an end to the most quickly to excessive margins, which are devastating both for consumers and for our producers.
Crisis profiteers?
“On the one hand, millions of people face food insecurity in France,” they explain in a joint press release, while prices in supermarkets have increased by more than 20% in two years. “On the other hand, some are taking advantage of the crisis,” they accuse, estimating that “the margin of the agri-food industry has reached a historic level” while that of mass distribution “has also increased on certain premium shelves. need “. All this, “in a climate of unacceptable opacity on the construction of prices”.
They ask the authorities to make “total and immediate transparency on the net margins by product” obligatory that “the giants of the agri-food industry and mass distribution” achieve. They also “demand” “concrete measures to make excessive margins on essential, healthy and sustainable food products impossible”, and the “removal of the guaranteed minimum margin of 10% for large-scale distribution [Seuil de revente à perte] “.
A management that has not achieved its objectives
This framework for the “loss resale threshold” (SRP) was adopted as part of the Egalim 1 law which was supposed to protect farmers’ income. It requires supermarkets to sell food products at least 10% more than the price at which they purchased them. But according to parliamentary evaluation work, the measure “seems to have only very partially achieved its objective” of increasing the remuneration of agricultural producers.
Emmanuel Macron announced at the end of September that he wanted to find with large industrialists “an agreement on the moderation of margins in the sector” with “controllers who will carry out checks”, and his Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire had specified a few days later later that the government would ensure that industrial margins remained “reasonable”.