Inflation is a tax that weighs on the most modest. Electricity bills, gas bills, school supplies, food prices have gone up. Faced with the situation, Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Trade, Crafts and Tourism, is clear: she is calling for “more effort” from distributors.
She ensures that the standoff with them, but also with the industrialists, does not weaken to bring down prices on the shelves of supermarkets. To do this, Olivia Grégoire and Bruno Le Maire, will receive for two days, from this Tuesday, manufacturers and managers of distribution brands.
“It’s the pressure that we will continue to put”
According to the Minister Delegate, the efforts of industrialists have been promising since the start of 2023. “However, they did not necessarily intend to make a basket or an entire anti-inflation quarter”, underlines Olivia Grégoire. Since January, agro-food professionals have made efforts on hundreds of products with an average drop on products in the anti-inflation basket which was more than 10% over one year.
But the fight is not over according to the government. In August 2023, just over 1,000 product references are down on supermarket shelves. “There is a problem, we will say things simply and that’s why we see them again, it’s that there are 20,000 references in a hypermarket”, she explains.
In the next few months, she wants price cuts on more products. “It’s the pressure that we will continue to put”, she punctuates at the microphone of Europe 1-CNews.