Inflation: Carrefour CEO accuses manufacturers of not “playing the game” of negotiations

Whose fault is it? In the desired discussions between distributors and manufacturers about price cuts, most of the latter have not yet “played the game,” said Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard, who believes that the “legislative framework” should force negotiations.

“I don’t like this little game of blaming the industrialists, but that’s the reality, they didn’t play the negotiation,” Carrefour’s CEO and new president of the Professional Federation of Industrialists told BFMTV. Supermarkets (FCD). “Out of 75 (The largest manufacturers are concerned about the expected negotiations planned by the government for 2024.), I have 50 people who do not take me on the phone, ”he assured.

Economics Minister Bruno Le Maire had said earlier on the same channel that “probably in the month of October there will be a text of a law to advance these trade negotiations, which were supposed to end in March 2024 and which will end in March 2024.” end of 2023, plus or minus a week or two.”

“Within the legislative framework, we will have to meet face to face, and usually when we are face to face, we manage to negotiate,” said Alexandre Bompard. “If we hold talks from October 1 to December 31, we should see a significant reduction in inflation from January,” he said.

Price lock for 5000 items

This week, the government announced that it had achieved price cuts or freezes on 5,000 products on store shelves. According to the president of Carrefour, the drop in sales of 1,100 products will occur “by an average of 10%” and “immediately”, including “most food products.” And we will do it by December 31st.

Regarding the frequency of trade negotiations, Carrefour’s CEO opined that “the only country where things are going so badly, where relations with manufacturers are so bad, is France, and it is the only country where negotiations are annual. Also questioned about this, System U President and CEO Dominic Schelcher calculated on Friday that we “lost six months.” ” Care (inflation) was very unbalanced: it’s hard for the French, we made an effort, but the support from the industrialists turned out to be insufficient compared to the results they are achieving, ”he judged on BFMTV.

Alexandre Bompard also said that he is “largely convinced” that in the first quarter of 2024 “we will be well below 10%” food inflation (which was 11.1% in August against 12.7% in July). “I hope that we will be closer to 5% and a little lower, but we will not be at zero. The days of zero food inflation are behind us,” he said.