As the annual trade negotiations continue, the climate has become tense between supermarkets and the French government after comments made by Annie Genevard, minister for agriculture, to the newspaper Le Parisien, which somewhat displeased the retailers.
The Trade and Distribution Federation (FCD), which includes E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché, Système U, and Auchan, has announced that it will boycott the forthcoming meetings of the trade negotiations monitoring committee.
In an interview with Le Parisien, Annie Genevard accused supermarkets of exerting "deadly blackmail" on food manufacturers. "The demands of supermarkets, in terms of prices, are incompatible with the demands of manufacturers," she told Le Parisien, saying that the chains "want to impose their price cuts." "Some retailers are threatening to delist certain brands if no agreement is reached. I think this is deadly blackmail for the agri-food sector." She added that if negotiations are too violent, "in the end, farmers will be the ones to suffer."
Annie Genevard also told Le Parisien that "increases are (...) generally justified, and it is no longer possible to circumvent French law via European buying groups. We therefore need to change European law, with (the Minister for SMEs and Trade) Serge Papin," promising to discuss the matter "with the European Commissioners" at the International Agricultural Show in Paris (February 21st - March 1st).
In a letter sent in response to the minister and signed by the heads of the main retailers, the FCD denounced these "simplistic and caricatured statements." It believes that "these remarks break with the working method based on trust and mutual respect" to which distributors and suppliers had "committed to maintain within the framework" of the charter signed at the end of November, on the initiative of the Ministries of Agriculture and Trade.
"The desire for dialogue is not shared, and the minimum conditions for a respectful and impartial exchange have not been met," writes the FCD. As a result, "the leaders of the retail sector and the FCD will not be taking part in the follow-up committees" to the negotiations, including the one scheduled for this week at Bercy.
In the face of these accusations, retailers are defending their position. "Many costs are currently on a downward trend," including "agricultural raw materials (soft and durum wheat, potatoes, coffee, sugar, cocoa...) and industrial raw materials (lower energy prices...)." In its view, this trend "must be reflected in current negotiations, to the benefit of French consumers, who have been hard hit by two years of high inflation."
In the run-up to the International Agricultural Show, the federation added that "pointing the finger at retailers as being responsible for all the imbalances is a diversionary tactic."
On Public Sénat, Michel-Edouard Leclerc also reacted, saying that the minister "can only be for the corporation she defends" and pointing to the lack of "transparency" of the "big multinationals" in the agri-business. With regard to the withdrawal of certain references, he stated that "at present, it is the manufacturers who are not supplying us." He also defended the use of European buying groups to weigh up against giants such as Unilever and Nestlé, which, in his view, do not represent "the interests of French farmers."
Source: lemonde.fr/bfmtv.com
