What is the Anti-Inflation Basket?

The government has been talking for a while about its anti-inflation basket project, aimed at ensuring French people have access to basic necessities at low prices. The executive hopes to turn the project around this week and aims for implementation in March. But the distributors are far from being unanimous behind the device, the terms of which are still unclear. Because to what extent can the government regulate selling prices?

The Minister Delegate in particular for Trade Olivia Grégoire, at the initiative of this project, explained on Europe 1 on Monday its objective: “to ensure that the French can have attractive prices on a daily basket”. Before recognizing that “between the idea and the action, it’s always complicated”.

Main pitfall, the impossibility for the government to regulate prices too rigorously. “The government cannot be too directive and must leave room for freedom otherwise we violate the rules on competition”, explains to AFP the boss of the fourth French distributor, System U, Dominique Schelcher.

First, the participation of the various players, E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché, Système U, Auchan, Lidl, Casino and Aldi, will be on a voluntary basis only. In mid-January, the general delegate of the Fédération du commerce et de la distribution (FCD) Jacques Creyssel was unenthusiastic with AFP, believing that “most brands are already doing this kind of thing in a fairly clear way “.

Then, impossible to precisely determine the list of products that would make up this basket, again for competition issues. The government rather intends to leave to the brands “the choice of each product meeting a unit of need”, details the cabinet of Olivia Grégoire to AFP.

The project is moving towards a list of around fifty products that meet the needs of an average French family with children, “and which would be at low prices and not at cost price”, said Ms. Grégoire on Europe 1. ” We can imagine a category of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables, in which a brand can offer mandarins and another, another food,” according to his firm.

There will be a priori food and non-food products, fresh, frozen products, groceries, but also cleaning or hygiene products. “Then, whether, on the fresh, we are talking about a dairy product category, or do we say yogurt and cheese category”, this remains to be arbitrated, we still say on the government side. Organic products should be part of the basket. The objective is that consumers have a possible basis for comparison, and why not generate emulation.

“What I’m offering distributors,” Ms. Grégoire said, is “collective action, together, starting in March” and “for three months.” His cabinet hopes to be fixed this week on the signs which undertake to launch their anti-inflation basket within the framework which will be determined by the government. Setting the deadline for March allows you to “allow time for it to fall into place”.

Nothing prevents traders from advertising, or touting, their own business operations. System U was the first Wednesday to launch its own “basket” comprising 150 private label references, that is to say products whose brand owns the brand, sold at “cost price”. The sign remains in discussions with the government. “We continue to register, on the other hand we think that there is an urgency for purchasing power and that March 1 is still far away”, explains Dominique Schelcher.

At the national level, the brand’s stores undertake to sell these products without more margin than that provided for by law, “from February 1 and for an indefinite period”. “When the government’s project is completed on March 1, we will extract 50 products from the 150” to compose the anti-inflation basket to be used to compare the brands, says the leader of the brand.

This is of course a commercial operation, which others could follow. For months, the sector has been multiplying operations, blocked prices, anti-inflation shield, the aim of which is to attract or retain customers who are very attentive to their receipt, while the rise in food prices has reached 13.2 % over one year in January, according to INSEE.