Food: manufacturers predict “price stability”, even “deflation” on the shelves

If the commercial negotiations between mass distribution players and agri-food manufacturers have just ended on Wednesday evening, the first forecasts are rather encouraging. Industrial prices should therefore remain stable or decrease by 1%, according to Jean-Philippe André, president of the National Association of Food Industries. Guest on RMC this Thursday morning, he forecasts “price stability in the best case scenario and, undoubtedly, deflation”.

Ilec, the organization representing very large manufacturers, wants to be more measured with an average increase of 2 to 3% in prices charged to large retailers. But “probably 15 to 20% of prices” could also fall, assured Richard Pancquiault, president of Ilec, this Thursday on RTL. These reductions should concern products “based on wheat, poultry, oils or certain varieties of coffee”, he listed.

It remains to be seen whether future price reductions will be visible on the shelves to consumers: “We negotiate a transfer price with them, after being responsible for the prices on the shelves, they are the ones who take care of it.” For Jean-Philippe André, we “need to see what will happen in the coming weeks”. Especially since a large number of agreements “have not yet been found”, according to Ilec. Richard Pancquiault justifies this delay by “a certain number of negotiations [which] are taking place abroad with structures which do not recognize these deadlines” and that “French law is not respected by some of these international structures” .

Agro-industrialists regularly criticize their supermarket clients for outsourcing part of the negotiations - those with the largest groups - on the conditions of sale of their production outside of France, in order to avoid French law.