The senators also want to extend the supervision of promotions on food products to all consumer products. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
The ban on reselling at a loss forces distributors to offer food products with a minimum margin of 10% to avoid price speculation.
On Wednesday, senators adopted in committee the bill by Renaissance deputy Frédéric Decrozaille aimed at reviewing the balance of power between manufacturers and large retailers, while suspending however the obligation for distributors to sell food products with a minimum margin of 10%. . The text will be examined in the hemicycle in first reading from next Wednesday.
“The inflationary context completely changes the situation“, estimated with AFP the centrist rapporteur Anne-Christine Loisier, for whom it is necessary”to integrate» the consumer in the complex equation of relations between suppliers and distributors. It is for this reason in particular that the senators have put the question of the threshold for resale at a loss (SRP+10) back on the table. The text of the National Assembly extends until 2026 this provision obliging distributors to sell food products with a minimum margin of 10%, which expires in April.
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“Price war”
The senators propose to suspend this measure for two years, until 1er January 2025, which could correspond to the period of inflation. The FNSEA immediately shouted at the “provocation“, believing that this initiative”risked having dramatic effects for the entire sector“by relaunching”a price waron food products. These measures “absolutely did not work», retorts the rapporteur, for whom these are «approximately 600 million euros taken each year from the consumer’s pocketwithout benefiting farmers.
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Another initiative of the senators: they want to extend to all consumer products, in particular hygiene and cleaning products, the supervision of promotions on food products. This measure would, according to the commission,a minimal inflationary effect, much lessto the purchasing power gains that the suspension of the SRP+ 10 would represent. For Anne-Christine Loisier, it is a question of protecting a French sector, the importance of which the Covid crisis has shown.
With regard to the flagship measure of the Decrozaille bill, which experimentally modifies the balance of power between suppliers and industrialists in the food industry and mass distribution, the senators have “framed” the device. In particular, they provided that in the absence of an agreement on 1er March between supplier and distributor, the price applicable during the one-month notice of termination should take into account “the economic situation of the market(inflation, average increases accepted by competitors, etc.).
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