Some large food groups, including Unilever, will lower the prices of hundreds of products in France. This was reported by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who threatens financial sanctions if the companies abstain.
According to Le Maire there will be controls on the prices of pasta, poultry and vegetable oil, among others. The minister would have a list next week listing all the products. He did not say which companies are involved. But Unilever, the company behind, among other things, Knorr’s soups and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, tells Reuters news agency it is also one of those companies.
The French government does not agree with the working methods of large companies. In recent months, consumers have paid more and more for groceries, while commodity prices are falling. Previously Le Maire had already threatened special taxes to recover the “unjustified” profits that the companies have made.
10 percent
But now there’s a different policy that takes its place. “On a number of products for which wholesale prices have gone down, retail prices will also have to go down. By 2, 3, 5, perhaps even 10 per cent,’ argues Le Maire. High food prices have led the French to pay more attention to their food spending. The French statistics agency Insee calculated that, adjusted for inflation, they fell to their lowest level since March 2009.
The French government announced in March that it had reached agreements with large retailers to lower prices. For June, these were reductions “to the lowest possible level”, according to Le Maire at the time. The companies had agreed that they would bear the costs themselves. According to Le Maire, this would involve “several hundred million euros”.
Source: BNR
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