The Intermarche Musketeers president accuses Danone of "not reasonable" price increases.
The negotiations between agro-industrialists and distributors are still not completed but the discord is already public. The president of the Intermarché Musketeers group Didier Duhaupand accused Danone on Thursday of taking advantage of inflation to improve its margins with "not reasonable" price increases.
"There has been a change of management at the head of Danone and their shareholders are asking them for higher profitability, this translates into price increases," said Didier Duhaupand on BFM Business, when asked about the absence, in many Intermarché stores, bottles of Evian, Badoit or Volvic, as many brands of the Danone group.
Intermarche Musketeers president
The government decided in March to reopen negotiations between industrialists and mass retailers, during which the purchase prices of a large part of the products then sold in supermarkets are decided. The objective was to take into account the inflation both of agricultural raw materials but also of production, transport or packaging costs, in the purchase prices of products by mass distribution.
But since March, the former have accused the latter of refusing to pay more for foodstuffs that cost more to produce or of increasing prices on the shelves even though they refused to pay more for these products. Distributors, for their part, consider certain price increases unjustified, or different from one manufacturer to another.
"We are also producers, with water sources," explained Didier Duhaupand, the Musketeers group having indeed the particularity of having an agri-food branch, Agromousketeers. "We know the breakdown of costs," which "makes us say that the demands of about 12% [of tariff increases] are not reasonable" compared to the market.
Intermarche Musketeers president statement
He considered that Danone, "like a number of companies, is taking advantage of the current crisis to restore their margins". For its part, Danone, if it says to AFP "not being able to comment" on this increase "related to business secrecy", says it has "found agreements with most of our other customers", agreements "that take into account [its] economic imperatives".
Jean-Philippe André, president of the National Association of Food Industries (Ania), indicated Thursday that for the moment "45% of our members have not completed all of their negotiations with all of their customers".
He asked the government "to encourage the actors to complete these negotiations by the end of the month", before a new phase for the 2023 tariffs is launched from October, which must be completed the following March. "A pile-up of negotiations would be really detrimental to everyone," according to him.
Intermarche Musketeers president comments
- it's water, the war in Russia, covid, the death of the Queen of England did not stop the production of eau......et in addition, if you put them in glass bottles it is more ecological, more profitable and better for everyone....... on the other hand, the prices of evian and tuna have not been increased....
- If the tap water was good people wouldn't throw themselves on plastic bottles! It's not the consumers who are responsible, you're not fooling the target..
- We find filter decanters that are very effective nowadays. For less than bottled water, we have just as good water, and less plastic dumpsters by the way...
