French shops operate in a different way to those in Britain or most other European countries. Instead of changing prices throughout the year, food suppliers instead typically negotiate and fix prices for the 12 months from March.
Food prices rose by an average of around 10pc under the most recent annual deal.
Wholesale prices have fallen since then, leaving French shoppers paying higher than necessary prices.
So now the govt’s complaining. But this is your system – annual prices.
‘In a further sign of firms distancing themselves from Le Maire’s announcement, ADEPALE, an association representing around 260 French small and mid-sized companies in the agri-food and fishing sectors, said its production costs had not fallen and asked not to be bound by the new negotiation timetable.’
Perhaps if they all bugger around long enough, the ‘negotiations’ will go on until the due date??
One observes that the complaint is about *non-French* companies failing to lower prices – French companies that likewise failed to lower prices are not criticised. Chauvinism was invented by a Frenchman
I bet somebody isn’t complaining.
Those price gouging multinational bastards with their economies of scale, eh?
But hang on a mo. If a farmer can sell his crop before it’s ripe (and he routinely foes, it’s the futures market) why shouldn’t the whole supply chain negotiate future prices?
I guess there is less than the square root of fuxk all’s chance of the contracting parties being left to sort it out among themselves.