Good news for consumers: “double-digit inflation is over,” said Thierry Cotillard, president of the Mousquetaires (Intermarché, Netto, Bricomarché) this Monday morning on RTL. In December, INSEE estimated food inflation at 7.1% over one year, compared to nearly 16% last spring. “We are going to bring food inflation back into the average inflation rate in France,” assures Michel-Edouard Leclerc on RMC. The president of the Leclerc centers estimates that there will be “no more than 2.5 to 3%” of inflation this year on “products that skyrocketed” last year. “Overall, the industrialists understood that they had made a big mistake and became more reasonable,” he said on Monday.
If some prices will increase less quickly than in previous weeks, others will even drop on the shelves. These “drops in purchasing prices” will be observed “for the first time in three years,” explains Thierry Cotillard. The latter has also “lowered the prices of 1,000 products since January 1”, anticipating negotiations with agri-food groups which must end within three weeks. Concretely, the price of cod has been reduced by 25% while that of cordon bleu has been reduced by 15%. Products made from declining raw materials will also experience a reduction in price, such as mayonnaise, biscuits or pasta.
Products from “major Indo-Pacific imports” will also be affected, adds Michel-Edouard Leclerc, namely toys and textiles. These price drops can be explained by “container prices divided by 4 or 5” in recent weeks. The president of the Leclerc centers, accustomed to forecasts, estimates that consumers will see price reductions – food and non-food – by February-March and that they will last, at least, until the summer.
