“There were no profiteers from inflation in the food industry”said Saturday, November 6 the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, in a newspaper interview The Parisian. In a context of sharp increase in food prices, the number two of the government had commissioned the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) to determine whether or not there were abusive profits.
“The conclusion is clear: there were no inflation profiteers in the food sector. Neither the farmers nor the distributors, nor the agri-food industry have taken excessive remuneration in the process”, he added. According to the IGF report consulted on Saturday by Agence France-Presse (AFP), “All in all, the rise in food prices is the result of a combination of several factors: war in Ukraine, post-Covid recovery, global warming, animal health crisis and various factors of an economic nature (competitiveness of the economy, shortage of labor -work…)”.
At the end of June, the president of the strategic committee of E.Leclerc stores, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, had deplored that “half of the requested increases” by manufacturers in the context of renegotiations on the price of foodstuffs intended to be sold by supermarkets were not “not transparent” and were “suspicious”.
A Senate report released on July 19, however, concluded that with the exception of a few ” special cases “ it was not observed “widespread phenomenon of excessive increases”. A few days later, a report by the deputies Aurélie Trouvou (La France insoumise) and Xavier Albertini (Horizons) had not made it possible to detect either “systemic abusive behavior on the part of manufacturers or distributors”.
+ 60% for oils, + 20% for pastes
The IGF selected a sample of twelve everyday food products (chicken cutlet, plain yogurt, baguette, etc.) and studied the evolution over time of the gross margin of the various players in the production chain. The analysis reveals on the one hand “that the food industry has squeezed its margins” and on the other hand that “supermarkets have not contributed to raising consumer prices for food products”thus disproving the hypothesis of inflation suffered only by the final consumer.
Despite this sharing of the effort, and lower inflation in France than in other European countries, the IGF points out that in one year, “Certain food products have experienced particularly high price increases, with for example + 60% for oils, + 22% for flour, + 20% for pasta and + 16% for poultry”.
Still on the issue of purchasing power, Bruno Le Maire suggested in his interview with Parisian to organize in early 2023 a “value sharing agreement”, within the Renaissance party. Even if he reaffirms in the interview his preference for the “employee dividend”the Minister of the Economy suggests associating within this agreement “economists, business leaders, employees and opposition groups to identify new ideas in addition to the work undertaken with the social partners”.
Finally, Bruno Le Maire reiterated his intention that France set up “a global minimum corporate tax of 15% at the start of 2023”, if no agreement is reached at European level by December. The Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany will introduce similar national taxation “on the same schedule”in accordance with a commitment made in September.