In September, Rewe announced that it would “brutally” fight against unjustified price increases by food manufacturers. Now the consequence follows: For the time being, the supermarket chain will no longer receive any products from Mars. The same applies to the competitor Edeka.
Because of a dispute over prices, the US food manufacturer Mars has stopped deliveries to the German supermarket chains Rewe and Edeka and their discounter subsidiaries Penny and Netto. Despite intensive negotiations, Rewe said in Cologne that there was no basis for accepting the price increases demanded by Mars. Some demands that cannot be justified by higher costs for energy and raw materials are “strictly rejected”. Edeka sees it similarly. “In our view, the current significant price demands from the manufacturer Mars are not factually justified,” said an Edeka spokesman.
Mars offers chocolate (Snickers, Bounty), chewing gum (Airwaves), pet food (Chappi), pasta (Miracoli), rice dishes (Ben’s Original) and ice cream, among others. Rewe and Edeka point customers to alternatives that they can offer with their own brands and other branded products. Mars said rising costs would be “absorbed internally as best as possible”. “However, a certain amount of price adjustment is necessary”. The US group has its German headquarters in Verden (Lower Saxony).
With the current announcement, the German supermarket chains are doing what they had already postulated at the beginning of September: not to pass on all price increases to customers, even if this could be at the expense of profits. Rewe boss Lionel Souque had warned at the time that consumers would have to adjust to higher food prices because large suppliers in particular were continuing to screw up prices.
“Most of them are free riders… riding the price wave and taking advantage of it to improve their bottom line,” Souque said. And further: “Many multinationals make more dividend income than last year.” The Cologne retail giant defends itself against the demands: “We are fighting brutally against it.” And Edeka boss Markus Mosa announced: “Food must not become a luxury good.”
