• Viral posts on Twitter raise fears of speculation on products like oils or mustard, indicating that the warehouses would be "full".

  • The questioning of the major distributors here is "absurd", judge Lionel Maugain, head of the money section of the magazine

    60 million consumers

    .

  • There is a phenomenon of overconsumption by customers, which affects stocks of certain products.

Empty shelves, posters urging you not to take more than two jars of mustard, soaring prices on certain products: these episodes fuel the fear of speculation.

On social networks, a viral post accuses “the warehouses of large retail chains” such as Auchan or Leclerc of withholding stocks of mustard, sunflower oil or pasta.

Deliveries would be slowed down "to raise prices and make people believe in a shortage" because of the war in Ukraine, criticizes a user, in a tweet shared more than 2,200 times.

Another viral post implicates the government "which is blocking everything to create a false shortage", evoking, without citing, "testimonies of employees in warehouses in France".

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The questioning of the large retail chains is "absurd", judges Lionel Maugain, head of the money section of the magazine

60 million consumers

.

"We can't talk about speculation," he says.

The only speculation in force is on the wheat market, with historical price levels and, at the same time, an availability of wheat for production which means that these price levels are not justified.

In mid-May, when India banned exports, wheat reached a record price of 438.25 euros per ton on the Euronext market.

“A lot can be said about distributors, continues the journalist, but they compete fiercely.

He emphasizes, on the contrary, that they do not hold back the goods and do everything to obtain oils, for example.

Information confirmed by Auchan.

“We absolutely do not overstock,” replies the brand.

As soon as we have the products, they are placed in stores to be sold to customers.

»

Just-in-time inventory management

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the retail brand has entered into a just-in-time management of its stocks, resulting in sometimes empty shelves.

Supply quotas by region have been put in place by raw material suppliers “in response to the current situation”, specifies Auchan.

It is a question of regulating the number of products that these suppliers can deliver, “because they themselves experience difficulties in the supply of raw materials”.

The E.Leclerc group specifies that the restocking of mustard shelves may be affected due to lower harvests.

On the other hand, for rapeseed or sunflower oils, the company indicates that it does not see “a risk of shortage”.

Overconsumption of products

Through the inflation observatory, set up in February by

60 million consumers

and the NielsenIQ institute, the magazine also noticed a phenomenon of overstocking.

"Since the start of the war, there has been 30% more oil sales than normal," says Lionel Maugain.

As soon as the shelves are filled, people rush.

»

Auchan has also noted this overconsumption of products, in particular for pasta, flour, sunflower oil.

For example, from March 14 to 20, just under three weeks after the start of the war, the brand noted a 53% increase in purchases of sunflower oil compared to 2021. For its part, E .Leclerc “invites its customers not to change their consumption habits so as not to artificially create stock-outs of these products”.

Finally, the photo used to illustrate one of the viral tweets is that of a fruit and vegetable warehouse in Argentina, visible on the website of Mecalux, a storage solutions company.

It can be found by performing a reverse image search using Google Lens.

Nothing to do with a warehouse in France therefore.

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