Commercial negotiations between producers, manufacturers and distributors end this Sunday evening at 11.59 p.m.

This year, the discussions were very complicated: the mass distribution wants to obtain the lowest possible prices to keep customers despite the crisis.

And behind the scenes, everything is possible, as Europe 1 reveals to you.

DECRYPTION

No peaceful relations between producers, manufacturers and distributors, nor any "trickle down" of wealth in farmyards: the 2020-2021 edition of trade negotiations, very tense, ends Sunday evening at midnight and seems far from the spirit of the Estates General of Food.

However, these negotiations between large distribution and suppliers are capital: they define the price of everything that we will buy in the coming year in the large distribution.

Europe 1 shows you part of the backstage.

Well-established "techniques" 

On the one hand, the supermarket buyer - sometimes the brands come together to gain more weight, others negotiate on their own - on the other the seller, the one who manufactures the products that we buy in stores. , from the carton of milk to the small organic yogurt through the laundry package.

It's a well-run role-playing game: large retailers want to pay as little as possible, the supplier wants the opposite, and to achieve their ends everyone has their own techniques, sometimes not far from intimidation.

Paul * negotiated for years with large distribution for food brands.

He reveals at the microphone of Europe 1 certain strategies used: "Install the salesperson on a chair which is smaller, make wait an incredible time, bring in a third person when we are in the process of concluding who comes to reset everything , make additional requests when the deal was almost concluded ... All of this is very widely used techniques. " 

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A war of nerves

It is therefore a war of nerves that is played in both directions.

If a brand can hardly do without one of the major distributors, it is the same in the other direction: a brand without coca-cola or without Danone dairy products is immediately less interesting.

Everyone's goal is therefore to find the least bad compromise.

And this year, as usual, farmers have accused supermarkets of dragging prices down.

The large distribution, for its part, denounced the price increases requested by agro-industrialists (dairies, biscuits, cured meats, producers of canned food or prepared meals ...).

Which, judged not very transparent on their margins, criticized in turn the distributors. 

As for the government and the State services, in particular the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), they have tried as best they can to remind everyone of their responsibilities and have stepped up checks. - even fines - to limit breaches.

In mid-February, Intermarché was summoned for “abusive commercial practices” by its international purchasing centers, the Ministry of the Economy asking for a spectacular sanction of 150.75 million euros.

The distributor, who intends to "challenge" this summons, defends its negotiations, "carried out in the service of the defense of the purchasing power of consumers".

*

The first name has been changed

A fair price for producers?

"Fighting for the fair return of value to producers", as Emmanuel Macron said, that was the whole issue of the Food Law (known as the EGAlim Law) carried by his government at the start of his five-year term.

But the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, also invited to Europe 1 on Saturday, admitted that it was far from having achieved its objectives.

"The negotiations are going completely normally, there are no particular problems", assured Thursday the financial director of Casino, David Lubek, ensuring to work "as every year on the issues of sustainability, in a logic of preservation of agricultural sectors ".

"The tensions were a little exacerbated this year", nuance for his part the former boss of System U Serge Papin, in a context of health concerns, economic and soaring prices of raw materials.

Mandated by the government to try to "reconcile" the various actors, he is, with AFP, categorical: "the time has come to fork and change the rules of the game", to preserve agricultural production, therefore "the food sovereignty of France ".

Julien Denormandie intends to bring together the representatives of each sector "from the end of March", once the emotion has subsided, to begin negotiations of a different type, this time on the recommendations of Serge Papin who proposes "the exit of the system annual negotiations, for the benefit of multi-year contracts ".

But is an agreement possible?

Julien Denormandie raised the threat of a new law, if an agreement is not found, even if the legislative calendar already seems to be very crowded by 2022. "If the large distribution, if the industrialists do not change, c 'it is the farmers who will disappear, "the minister warned on Europe 1 on Saturday.

The executive director of Lidl France Michel Biero emphasizes, for his part, that his company has signed a number of so-called "tripartite" agreements with breeders or agricultural producers.

Allowing agreement on a price set by the producers, these are, assures Michel Biero, "the only contracts which are established on trust and transparency".

Two concepts which were not, according to the various players, not at the heart of these trade negotiations ...