Negotiations between manufacturers and large retailers: for Lidl boss Michel Biero, "we must legislate"

Ophélie Artaud / Photo credit: Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 15:50 pm, September 02, 2023

On Thursday, following a meeting with manufacturers and representatives of large retailers, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, announced that the prices of 5,000 references in stores would not increase or even decrease. But on the consumer side, inflation continues and shopping is increasingly complicated for some French people. In May, distributors and manufacturers had already met, at the request of Bercy, to renegotiate the prices of food products, without this leading to a real reduction in tariffs. Invited by Europe 1, Michel Biero, executive director of purchasing and marketing at Lidl, is clear: according to him, "we must legislate".

National brands "did not play the game"

"Last spring, the government said that we had to bring the 75 biggest national brands around the table to discuss prices again. In France, therefore, there is a law that does not exist anywhere else in the world and that says that national brands must be negotiated by March 1 of each year. This year, due to the inflationary context and the fact that material prices have fallen sharply, the government had asked multinationals to sit around the table to lower prices, but it is clear that six months later, absolutely nothing has happened, "recalls Michel Biero. "Of the 75 multinationals mentioned, only a dozen played the game."

>> READ ALSO - "It becomes a luxury to eat": with inflation, the checkout is more and more painful

Therefore, for the executive director of purchasing and marketing at Lidl, the only solution is to "legislate". "Just saying it is not enough and is not a law. The proof, they did nothing. Those who answered us told us that negotiations would take place in March 2024," explains Michel Biero.

According to him, "Bruno Le Maire has made very strong commitments" by announcing that he was going to "legislate to bring forward the deadline, no longer March 1 but December 31, and by launching a parliamentary mission to modify the rules of negotiations on national brands, and for them to take place throughout the year, as is the case on private labels," he concludes at the microphone of Europe 1. Measures that would allow "price reductions from January 2024," said Bruno Le Maire.