“ The account is not there in these negotiations”, denounced, Thursday January 11, Léonard Prunier, president of the Federation of Companies and Entrepreneurs of France (FEEF), an organization which brings together a thousand SME suppliers to large-scale distribution, even though negotiations between companies of less than 350 million euros in turnover and the supermarket and hypermarket brands, to set the 2024 prices, end on Monday January 15.
Three days before this deadline, all stakeholders in the French food industry were invited to a meeting of the trade negotiations monitoring committee under the aegis of Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture, and in the presence of Roland Lescure, Minister Delegate in charge of Industry, representing Bercy. A meeting marked by the uncertainty linked to the ministerial reshuffle but which did not fail to highlight the tension reigning in the negotiation boxes.
The FEEF presented the results of a survey conducted among its members on January 8. It appears that the contract signature rate of those surveyed was then only 53%. Above all, it highlights a “absence of price revaluation for suppliers of SMEs and mid-sized companies [ETI] with on average a requested price increase of around 3% and a landing of negotiations at the stall or even negative (between 0 and – 1% deflation) for 60% of SMEs-ETIs”. However, according to this organization, 72% of the companies surveyed anticipate a drop in their net profit in 2023, a sign of the inability for SMEs to have reflected the increase in their costs in final prices. And he estimates that production costs have generally continued to increase in 2023.
But contract signings are accelerating. According to Jean-Philippe André, president of the National Association of Food Industries (ANIA), which brings together all food product manufacturers in France, to date, “ 70% of SMEs have signed ». Conversely, he claims that the rate is only 10% for large companies. It is true that, according to the new law that the government adopted in 2023 to speed up the timetable for negotiations, they have until January 31 to reach an agreement.
Agricultural raw materials
Large retailers criticize the food industry giants for playing for time. She also points out what she describes as a lack of transparency. She considers that the documents certifying increases in the cost of raw materials, particularly agricultural ones, and therefore justifying requests for revaluation, are subject to doubt. The violence of the confrontation was illustrated by Carrefour’s decision to delist the brands of the PepsiCo group in its stores, in retaliation for requests for price increases deemed excessive.
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