For several weeks, Anthony Héliot has been trying to reduce the number of round trips between the bakery and the delivery locations in the face of soaring fuel prices. Manager of the Maison Héliot bakery and pastry shop in Dijon, he has reorganized the two utilities that criss-cross the roads of the agglomeration to deliver his products to companies, schools or clinics. Until then transported in the back of the vehicle, the bread is also found “up front, on the passenger seats to make two or three more deposits per round. Each return is a few more kilometers, so we load the car“. Something to save some money: “_over thirty days, that’s a third of full_so thirty or forty euros earned“.
These last months, his monthly fuel budget has increased by 50%. “We pay 600 euros now instead of 400 before“, he clarifies, sorry for not being able to”use these 200 euros otherwise“. If he does not intend to reduce his team of nine employees, he will soon have to make a choice and “the risk is that we will increase our prices. We postpone the decision as much as possible, but every week we calculate our margins and there we come to the end…“.
Limit travel by home helpers
When the car becomes the main work tool, as for home help, the bill increases even more. “They ask us to limit travel, to ensure that back and forth trips are avoided“explains Aurélien Faria, director of home services for Home Help in Rural Areas (ADMR) of Côte d’Or, an association that employs nearly 400 carers in the department, “for example so that we avoid going to Ahuy to then go to Longvic“.
The association has taken measures to also reduce the cost of living, by raising the mileage allowance from 35 to 40 centimes per kilometer traveled“and this until August“, specifies the manager, adding that the ADMR is working to set up, in the coming months”a car fleet for our employees, with the aim that as many people as possible have access to these service vehicles“.