It is a large-scale alliance of the entire agri-food chain that the Competition Authority sanctioned on Thursday January 11. More than 19.5 million euros in fines imposed on four professional organizations and eleven companies which are members (including Andros, Bonduelle, Charles et Alice, D’Aucy, General Mills, Unilever, etc.), for having restricted consumer information on the presence of bisphenol A (BPA), one of the main endocrine disruptors, in packaging.
The Federation of Preserved Food Industries, the National Association of Food Industries, the Association of Processed Food Products Companies and the National Union of Manufacturers of Cans, Packaging and Metal Closures “agreed to encourage manufacturers not to compete on the presence or absence of bisphenol A in their canned goods”, specifies the Competition Authority. In addition, eleven companies were convicted for participating “at meetings organized by their associations or unions” on the subject.
A pact of non-agression
The case dates back to 2015. At that time, a law dating from December 24, 2012 had suspended the manufacture, import, export and placing on the market of any container or utensil containing BPA from 1er January 2015. A chemical substance present in the manufacture of hard and transparent plastics such as polycarbonate as well as in the resins covering the inside of metal cans, and therefore likely to pass into food.
Before this legislation came into force, the participants in this alliance increased exchanges between 2010 and 2015 in order to coordinate the information provided to consumers. Result: a non-aggression pact intended not to highlight, on packaging, products without bisphenol A during the first months of the changeover. This is to avoid penalizing the sales of the least responsive companies. Because in order not to destabilize production sectors, the legislator had authorized manufacturers to sell until stocks were exhausted products that had been placed on the French market before 1er January 2015.
To turn their products around more quickly, players in the agri-food sector had even imagined shortening the best-before dates on the packaging – this period beyond which the product can be consumed, but whose quality the manufacturer no longer guarantees. organoleptic (taste, consistency, etc.) or dietary.