Covid-19: from pharmacies to supermarkets, at what price are self-tests sold?

During this holiday season, while more than 100,000 Covid infections are recorded every day, laboratories and pharmacies offering screening are in high demand. To meet this strong demand, the Ministry of Health has provisionally authorized large-scale distribution to sell self-tests to its customers. A decree published in the Official Journal on Tuesday 28 December deleted the reference “limited to pharmacists within their pharmacy” exceptionally, until January 31st.

“In the context of a very sharp increase in the incidence rate, due to the spread of the Delta and Omicron variants and a demand for examinations and screening tests unprecedented since the start of the health crisis, there is There is a need to diversify the supply and sales channels for self-tests for antigenic detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on nasal swab “, justifies the Ministry of Health in this decree. We take stock of the prices offered by the various supermarkets and their supply.

At Auchan, shelving began on Thursday, December 30 “in certain points of sale” and continues in stores not yet stocked. “The tests are sold in boxes of 5, at a cost of € 1.95 per unit”, we are told, or € 9.75 per box. A much lower sum than in pharmacies, where you can buy a box of 5 self-tests 25 € on average. These self-tests are also “available to all, without loyalty program conditions”. The same goes for the Monoprix brand, which offers these self-tests to all its customers at a price of € 12.95 per box of 5 tests. The group, which started selling on Thursday, tells us to expect “to make replenishments as and when to meet the needs of (its) customers “.

Some large distributors had already anticipated the situation and were thus able to quickly put self-test boxes on the shelves. Having built up stocks in March, the E. Leclerc group was therefore able to supply two-thirds of the stores on Wednesday, as indicated by Michel-Edouard Leclerc on Europe 1. The latter announced on Thursday on Twitter sell these self-tests at cost price, that is to say without any margin made on them: “E. Leclerc will now sell them at € 1.24 (€ 6.20 per box of 5). It is at cost price (without margin). Far from scarce stocks, this opening benefits the French!”

However, according to our information, the unit price may turn out to be a little more expensive than announced by the brand. It can go up to € 9.75 for a box of 5 self-tests, as we saw on Thursday in a Leclerc store in Eure-et-Loir (see the photo of the invoice below). Conditions are also attached: only customers with the store card can benefit from one box per month. Asked on this point, the group told us on Friday that the price had been reduced to € 6.20 per box, in accordance with its communication. “The price of 1.24 euros per unit and 6.20 euros per box of 5 having been announced yesterday, it may happen that the price update takes a few hours”, we are told.

Carrefour France also has a stock of one million tests, ordered in March. The first boxes of 5 self-tests were therefore able to sell on Thursday at a price of € 9.75, according to The Parisian. However, products should not stay on the shelves of supermarkets for very long. Scouting has been on record since the beginning of December and in particular during the holiday season. Last week, more than 6.8 million tests were performed in France, according to figures from Public Health France.