Even before having sketched out the price and the content, the government seems to have definitively abandoned its project of an “anti-inflation basket”, uniform and common to all brands. The idea was launched in December 2022 by the Minister Delegate for Trade, Olivia Grégoire, to guarantee low prices on a selection of consumer products, and thus protect the most vulnerable from the sharp rise in inflation prices, above 14% over one year in February.
From March 2, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, seemed to draw a line under any basket imposed on distributors by Bercy. “I am in favor of a system that affects all our compatriots, all the middle classes, all French people”, he assured the Agricultural Show. But “Not everything can be paid for by the state”he warned immediately, inviting distributors and manufacturers to “to go their own way”.
The big brands have heard it. Opposed to a “basket” decided by the State, each declines its offer to limit the blows inflicted by inflation on the portfolio. “We found a very good agreement with the Minister [Bruno Le Maire] (…). He decided to leave everyone the freedom to define the operations of their choice.act on Sunday the CEO of Carrefour, Alexandre Bompard, In The Sunday newspaper.
Three “anti-inflation baskets”
The boss drew, in the weekly, the contours of his own basket of two hundred products “at blocked prices”, offered from March 15 to June 15: a hundred foods qualified as “healthy” and as many everyday goods , such as laundry or baby diapers. An investment effort of several tens of millions of euros, according to Alexandre Bompard, who foresees a “double-digit level of food inflation until this summer”.
On Sunday, the Intermarché group also promised its “basket”. Five hundred references, this time: four hundred and seventy of its own brands and thirty fresh products from the traditional departments (fruits, vegetables, fish, etc.). Advertising campaign “increased” is planned.
Before Carrefour and Intermarché, their competitor Système U had been the first to promise its basket, “one hundred and fifty products at cost price” and for one ” indefinite period “. A ” big success “, boasted its president, Dominique Schelcher, on Classic Radio from February 21: sales of targeted products would have increased by 20%.