Commercial negotiations: postponed, the preparatory meeting at Bercy still boycotted by distributors this Monday

One month before the start of commercial negotiations, which are known to be stormy, a preparatory meeting initially scheduled for October 28 is due to host food manufacturers and distributors this Monday, November 2 in Bercy, but is boycotted by the latter. The Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD), which represents the main brands such as E. Leclerc, Carrefour and Intermarché, announced in a press release that it would not “participate” in this preparation committee “until two fundamental requirements have been recognized and shared by all”: “transparency” on the costs of agricultural raw materials and differentiated treatment for SMEs.

The agri-food manufacturers (Ania, Ilec, Culture Viande, La Coopération agricole and the poultry industries) criticize their absence in a joint press release, believing that it “above all saves them from having to account for their own practices”. In a separate press release, Pact'Alim, which represents SMEs and mid-sized companies in the agro-industry, believes that “the next negotiations must not reproduce the imbalances observed in recent years”. A “responsibility pact” Every year, from December 1 to March 1, supermarkets and food suppliers carry out negotiations, sometimes brutal, which ultimately determine shelf prices (excluding distributors' own brands) and are regularly accused of putting pressure on farmers' remuneration.

While the 2026-2027 vintage promises to be particularly tense, and inflation inevitable, the government announced two weeks ago that it wanted to bring together the stakeholders upstream, with a view to a “responsibility pact”. The “directives” will concern “all the players in these negotiations”, explained Sunday the office of the Minister of Commerce Serge Papin, “it will be the search for a balance between the purchasing power of the French and imported inflation which penalizes our farmers and our SMEs, and which will have to be passed on as a priority to them”. The cabinet also believes that the demands of the FCD are already taken into account in the new provisions of the agricultural emergency law which provides in particular that the deadline for the end of negotiations with SMEs is shorter than with the rest of the industrialists, in particular to avoid them being "the adjustment variable" at the end of the negotiation period.

Machine-translated from French