Financing French Food
France’s agriculture minister sought to reassure households that food shopping bills would not rise dramatically as an increase in minimum food prices aimed at raising farmers’ incomes came into effect on Friday.
The government had halted the measure in December in the midst of “yellow vest” protests over high living costs. Didier Guillaume, the country’s agriculture minister, noted that prices of goods sold in supermarkets at a discount ( including Nutella, Coca-Cola) would increase a meager 5%. This all comes part of the “field-to-fork” bill introduced by President Emmanuel Macron to win support among farmers regarding their concerns of being hit by low margins and ending up the victims of retail price wars.
Michel-Edouard Leclerc, CEO of supermarket chain Leclerc, has branded the food price increases a “scam” and said farmers would not see higher prices as the chain typically makes a margin of 30-40 percent on farmers’ products.
The new legislation includes a 10% increase in the price floor for food products and curbs promotional offers so that retailers cannot discount products by more than 34% of their value which is said to bring the average household shopping bill to increase by anywhere from 50 cents to 3 euros a month.
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