“The liter of milk at 70 cents, I’m sorry but that must no longer exist”. On the shelves of the Leclerc supermarket in La Roche-sur-Yon, Patrice Remeau records the prices of several dozen items on a sheet provided for the occasion. This Tuesday, August 2, the breeder, FDSEA departmental delegate for the milk sector, is participating with several colleagues in an operation to survey the prices of dairy products in supermarkets. The objective: to monitor inflation, and check whether it has a good impact on the selling price of milk. “We already raised prices last month, we are doing the same again, and we will see in a few weeks what it is for us, if we sell our milk at a higher price.
Raise prices on the shelf
“On average, a liter of milk is sold for 78 cents to the processor”, recalls Patrice Remeau. “It is largely insufficient, we are also taking the brunt of inflation”. “There are rising prices for fuel, water, electricity, food”adds his colleague Sylvie Douillard. “With the drought, we won’t be able to feed the animals with our own fodder this winter, we will have to buy some. Given the current price of milk, it’s impossible. We’re not going to get by.”
Farmers therefore demand an increase in the purchase price of a liter of milkeven if it means further increasing the price of the finished product on the shelves. “People have been used to paying very little for their food,” argues Patrice Remeau. “I hear the difficulties, I myself am a consumer. But with prices like today, there will soon be no more milk, because there will be no more producers.”
A difficult argument to defend for large retailers, while inflation reached 6.1% over one year in July. The operation was preceded bya meeting lasting several hours with the bosses of the Leclerc centers of La Roche-sur-Yon and Saint-Gilles Croix de Vie. “We try to meet regularly to take stock, and hear from the producers”notes Yann Goudy, the owner of the Gillocrucian store. “We do not deal directly with producers, and the selling price is not linked to the price paid to breeders”, he recalls. “Raising our prices on the shelf doesn’t make sense to us, without making sure it trickles down to them.”