the success of food baskets of unsold products, in the face of declining purchasing power

Twice a week, since February, Sébastien, a young Parisian, opens the Phénix application. He looks around his home which shops offer baskets of products at discounted prices, three times cheaper than for the same products on the shelves. “For food products, milk, fruits and vegetables, it’s really interesting”, he explains.

Faced with rising prices and inflation which reached 4.8% in April, compared to the same month last year, more and more French people are looking for ways to save money. Food is the third largest item of expenditure, after transport and housing. Several thousand bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets offer baskets of unsold products at discounted prices. Otherwise, these products would go in the trash. At the moment, these baskets are particularly popular.

“Especially at the primeur, I always have the impression that it’s super expensive, comments Sebastian. “Right now is not the right time. When you want to pay for quality products, you have to pay quite a lot”. With two baskets of vegetables and fruit per week, the young Parisian manages to do his shopping for the week “for less than 10 euros.”

“It allows you to pay for stuff on the side, go to the movies, save money for the holidays. It’s true that when you’re young and you’ve taken off the rent, food remains a big expense.”

Sébastien, young Parisian

at franceinfo

Sébastien thus saves 80 euros per month. A significant budget for this young working man from the South-East, who saw his purchasing power drop sharply when he arrived in Paris. On the other hand, there are several constraints with the baskets: pick them up at certain time slots, often in the evening, and consume the products quickly, or freeze them. They are not expensive because they were going to pass the expiration date.

Another disadvantage: you don’t know what products you will have in your basket. Juan has had vegetables before, like beets, or goat cheese that he didn’t like. But the most important thing for the young Colombian is to save money. “It is less expensive, recognizes Juan “because there with inflation, for agricultural products, it’s huge!” “In Colombia, we eat a lot of rice. I try to keep my Colombian traditions a bit. The rice has increased a lot and all the vegetables.”

Juan works remotely for an American company. Paid in dollars, he loses purchasing power, through the play of the exchange rate with the euro. In addition, his salary is not revalued by following inflation saves 100 to 200 euros per month thanks to the baskets, which he sends to his family in Colombia. When others need it in their daily lives.

“In general, we let them choose a sandwich, a pastry, bread, and a small sweet cake” and all for five euros, says Neïma, a baker in a popular district of Paris. She has been selling three to four baskets every night for a year and a half. 15,000 points of sale are registered on the Phénix application. “To avoid waste and then if it can help young people in difficulty or even people in difficulty, we did that”, continues the baker. “I see a lot of young people coming to take baskets.”

Young people are indeed the typical profile of the buyer of baskets via the Phénix application: young people, rather women, urbanites, between 25 and 35 years old.
Jean Moreau, the co-founder of Phénix, has seen the use of his application increase sharply in recent months.

“We see that it’s becoming a new consumption habit, a new routine.”

Jean Moreau, co-founder of Phoenix

at franceinfo

Regular users of the application are between 350,000 and 400,000, and buy at least two baskets per month. “We are seeing more and more downloads without increasing marketing and advertising budgets”observes Jean Moreau. “It’s a pretty natural flow that comes on the app with a lot of word-of-mouth too, I think.” “And the second observation is that there is a lot more repurchase, details the co-founder of Phénix, So people who no longer buy one basket per month or per week, but 2, 3, 4, 5, 10.”

Jean Moreau also observes that consumers are rushing today for basic necessities: fruits, vegetables, dairy products. While before they used the app to test takeout restaurants. According to internal studies at the Phénix company, 70% of its users first buy baskets for economic reasons, to preserve their purchasing power, before ecological reasons, not to waste.