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 the relations between suppliers and distributors.
It is for this reason in particular that the senators have put the question of the resale loss threshold (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 happens in April.
The senators propose to suspend this measure for two years, until January 1, 2025, which could correspond to the inflation period.
The FNSEA immediately cried out the provocation, believing that this initiative risked having dramatic effects for the entire sector by reigniting a price war on food products.
This system absolutely did not work, retorts the rapporteur, for whom it is about 600 million euros taken each year from the pocket of the consumer without benefiting the farmers.
Another initiative of the senators: they want to extend all consumer products, in particular hygiene and maintenance products, the supervision of promotions on food products. According to the commission, this measure would have a minimal inflationary effect, well below the gains in purchasing power that the suspension of the SRP+ 10 would represent.
For Ms. Loisier, it is a question of protecting a French sector, the importance of which the Covid crisis has shown.
With regard to the key measure of the Decrozaille bill, modifying in an experimental way the balance of power between suppliers and industrialists of the food industry, and mass distribution, the senators supervised the device. In particular, they provided that in the absence of an agreement on March 1 between supplier and distributor, the price applicable during the one-month break notice should take into account the economic situation of the market (inflation, average increases accepted by the competitors…).