The baguette at 29 cents, a taste of com' not necessarily enticing?

• In full inflation, Leclerc launched its baguette at 29 euro cents.

• A price so low that it could leave consumers skeptical about the final quality of the product.

• Is a cut price really always attractive or shouldn't grandma be pushed into the flour?

Faced with a baguette at 29 cents, is your first instinct to say to yourself “it's a bargain, I'm buying” or “it must be awful considering the price”?

Leclerc's whole bet is to hope that baguette lovers will opt for the beautiful “bargain”.

By fixing the price of its baguette at less than 0.3 euro for four months and this, in the midst of inflation, the retail giant has drawn the wrath of bakers and millers.

Leclerc hopes to seduce customers, but could this very low price not have the opposite effect and put off the French who equate high price with quality?

“How can a price be so low?

Is it poor quality?

Is it harmful to health?

“Questions Marie-Pierre Julien indeed.

Interviewed by

, the anthropologist and sociologist specializing in food practices at the University of Lorraine continues: "Since the beginning of the 2000s and the fight against obesity in France, there has been real reflection in all social categories on the link between food and health, and the notion that good health comes from good products.

” Conclusion, it is not because a fridge needs to be filled that it must be filled with any product as long as it is not expensive.

Marie-Pierre Julien assures us that the French are now more careful about the content of their plate: all socio-professional categories are aware of the importance of healthy and balanced food and the most precarious are perhaps no longer attracted by the price of the baguette too low.

The price, a determining criterion for the purchase

Faced with such a bargain price, it is therefore not just Erwin, a bobo from the 9th arrondissement of Paris who is a fan of

, who will ask questions about the quality of the "Leclerc baguette", insists our anthropologist: " Everyone is wondering and aware. “And can also wonder how much Leclerc has cut back on production costs (salaries, etc.)? "It is quite possible that Leclerc will manage to make large margins without deteriorating the quality of the baguette too much or to compensate for this promotion with the prices of its other products", estimates Fabrice Etilé, professor of food economics and director of research at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

“It is obvious that this case does not apply to all French people.

Of course, those who can afford to buy their baguette in a bakery will continue to do so if their income allows them,” adds Fabrice Etilé.

Corn

the economist also recalls a major economic reality: “The first concern of many households is to put something on the plates and the The price remains a determining criterion.

»

Above all, it's the taste

Still, we are in France, a nation of gastronomy and good food [and Zinedine Zidane, but that's not the topic of the day]. It is therefore high time, as a good patriot who loves flavor and feasts, to talk about one of the most important criteria: taste. Marie-Pierre Julien: “It's extremely important for the validation of a product and it remains a key consumer experience. He's not going to buy the wand if he doesn't find it good. »

Let's go even further: the crouton lover will not buy the baguette if he finds it less good than the one he has tasted so far.

The price does not excuse everything, and even less for a baguette, a heritage and everyday product par excellence.

In consumer economics, this is called “an experience good”, informs Fabrice Etilé.

In other words, the baguette is one of those products that we have eaten a lot and of which we therefore have a very precise idea of ​​the taste.

“If the baguette at 29 cents is less good than a more expensive baguette, the consumer will not come back to it.

This could therefore tarnish the image of Leclerc ”, even slices the economist.

Leclerc has undoubtedly prepared his cost well

What make Michel-Edouard Leclerc and his descendants tremble over five generations? Probably not, because the supermarket has also mastered the notion of experience goods, and has no doubt prepared its cost well (do you have it?). Fabrice Etilé prophesies: “The baguette will certainly not be bad, otherwise it would be a catastrophic operation. Leclerc therefore had to make arrangements to preserve the quality of the product as much as possible. »

And if the stick is good, it's a bonus for Leclerc.

Just like the taste, the price of the baguette is anchored in the brain of the consumer – the experience good, always – who will certainly remember a baguette as good as the previous ones but less expensive.

All the success or failure of this marketing operation would therefore hang on the taste buds of the French.

And for food, it's still the main thing.

Society

Leclerc's 29-euro-cent baguette angers bakers and farmers

Economy

Inflation: These products whose price should increase in 2022

• Taste

• Baguette

• Consumption

• Rate

• Price

• Bread

• Economy

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