For months, the shelves of Carrefour, France’s largest supermarket chain, have been dotted with bright orange posters placed in front of bottles of Pepsi, Lays potato chips and other foods whose packages are suspiciously smaller than before.
“Reduflation,” the posters say. “This product has seen its volume decrease and the price charged by our supplier increase.”
The French government issued a decree on April 19: starting July 1, all food retailers in the country must display warnings in front of all products whose size has been reduced without a corresponding price cut, in an attempt to combat the consumer scourge known as redflation.
“The practice of redflation is a scam”Bruno Le Maire, France’s Finance Minister, said in a statement. “We are putting an end to it.”
The Government is also urging buyers “who have questions about the price per unit of measure displayed on shelves” to report it to the authorities via France’s consumer reporting app.
The redflation has become a source of outrage for shoppers in France and a political issue for President Emmanuel Macron. Although inflation has fallen by more than a third in the country compared to the previous year, the increase in food prices persists. A typical basic basket, which includes products such as pasta and yogurt, is between 3 and 5 percent more expensive than a year ago, after an increase of 16 percent in 2023.
Macron had promised to reduce food costs further this year. The campaign against redflation is the latest weapon. Stores will have to display signs for two months after the reduced products have hit their shelves.
Many global consumer goods companies have raised prices by double-digit percentages over the past year, attributing the increases to higher ingredient and labor costs. Still, many of those companies have reported higher profits by selling fewer items at higher prices.
The issue came to a head in France last year when Carrefour announced it would no longer sell PepsiCo products because prices were “unacceptably” high for consumers, intensifying an effort by retailers to name and shame brands that did not reduce prices. as inflation subsides. France has submitted a proposal to the European Union that would force Europe’s food retailers to carry out a markdown labeling campaign.
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