Rising Concerns Over Food Inflation and Shrinkflation Spark Legislative Action in France and Germany

Fewer products for the same or more money, without clear communication. That, in a nutshell, is the definition of decline or ‘inflation‘, an ongoing phenomenon in the food sector that is not immediately apparent until you as a customer face the facts. You can get fewer chips in the bag for the same price, or the contents of a packet of butter will go from 250 grams to 200 grams, without any price change.

It is a widespread and controversial marketing practice by large food companies, who assume that most consumers will not notice and will continue to buy their products. Some brands also consciously hide behind false marketing terms such as “improved formula” and “more stable packaging”, the bottom line being that there is (even) more air in that crisp bag.

Carrefour is already caught doing it

Pending stricter European legislation, France is now the first EU member state to do something about this. From July 1, all supermarkets in our southern neighbors must place clear notices on their shelves to warn customers about products whose packaging sizes have recently been reduced. Many major brands and supermarkets in France have been downed by consumer groups in recent years, from Carrefour and Findus to Lay’s and Lipton Ice Tea.

That was not without consequences. When a package of potatoes at Carrefour dropped in weight from 1.5 kilograms to 1 kilogram to maintain the retail price of 99 cents, the French supermarket chain itself took the initiative to label branded products in times of recession. But the other supermarkets in France are anything but happy with the strict measure announced last Friday by Olivia Grégoire (Renaissance), Secretary of State for Responsible Economy.

Their reservation is related to the requirement to keep the warning on the shelves for at least two months. An average supermarket in France has around 25,000 product labels. Changing this every two months is a “titanic task”, according to the food distributors. They argue that consumers already receive accurate information about the price per kilo and that this is a limited thing. Only 0.2 percent of the supply would have ever been affected by recessionary inflation.

“I’m afraid the measure will be very difficult to implement,” warned Dominique Schelcher, head of the Système U supermarket chain. reduce, that its recipe has been changed.” Michel Edouard Leclerc, owner of a French supermarket chain of the same name, was on the same page this weekend.“It’s up to the manufacturer to write this clearly on the package, not the chains supermarkets,” he wrote on X.

Germany also has plans

Secretary of State Grégoire responded and said that she would eventually like manufacturers to take that action. According to her, this will probably be organized at the European level next year, after the proposed change of European consumer legislation for the food industry. But the French government does not want to wait that long.

There is no doubt that the German Minister of Consumer Protection, Steffi Lemke (Die Grünen), is watching with interest. Germany also wants to take action against hidden price increases in supermarkets with a new packaging law. This became known at the end of last year. According to a bill, smaller packaging should be accompanied by smaller product content, just because the same product material may not suddenly be offered in larger packaging. The bill for this is still being drafted.