From farmers to bakers, the entire wheat sector was outraged on Wednesday January 13 at the launch by the Leclerc group of a baguette at 0.29 euros, denouncing a campaign “demagogic and destructive of values”. Michel-Edouard Leclerc announced on Tuesday that he was blocking the price of the baguette in the group’s stores at 29 euro cents – or even up to 23 cents – for at least four months, in the name of the defense of power purchasing by the French in an inflationary context.
A declaration of war for the entire wheat industry. Cereal growers, millers and bakers, as well as the FNSEA, the leading agricultural union, denounced in a joint press release “prices that deliberately destroy values”. They are indignant at an announcement “demagogic” whereas “the prices of cereals and consequently of flour, are experiencing high prices, that production costs (wages, etc.) are rising sharply and that the average price of the baguette in France in 2021 according to INSEE is 0.90 euro “.
This announcement, which occurs at a time when the sectors and the government “work to fairly remunerate farmers” and or “the know-how and the quality of the French baguette are in the process of being recognized by Unesco”, caused an uproar. “We seek to preserve employment and quality, this comes at a cost: we must pay the actors correctly, those who plant, who harvest, who assemble the grains and make the flour, and those who make the bread. Leclerc is ashamed “, declared Jean-François Loiseau, president of the National Association of the French milling.
“Unfair competition”, denounce the bakers
Wheat prices have increased by 30% in one year, a cost to which must be added wages, rents and other charges for bakers. It is therefore impossible for bakeries to match Leclerc prices. “We are very angry, it’s unfair competition”, denounced on franceinfo Dominique Anract, the president of the National Confederation of French bakery and pastry. According to him, with Leclerc’s baguette at a discounted price, some customers will abandon their bakery to favor the supermarkets. “There are 33,000 bakeries in France, some are very small and live on 300 baguettes a day. If they lose 100 customers a day, they are dead”, adds Dominique Anract.
“Mr. Leclerc will have to explain to us how and how much he pays bakers with a baguette at 29 cents”, reacted on his side Christiane Lambert, patron of the FNSEA, the main agricultural union. In addition, Leclerc “break the prices” in the particularly tense context of the annual negotiations between producers and distributors, underline the actors of the sector. Michel-Edouard Leclerc did not hide it: “Flour suppliers have made a lot of claims about the increase in the price of wheat, asking for considerable increases.”, he said Tuesday on BFM-TV, defending his choice on a “flagship product”, “inflation marker”, as it had done for fuel a few months ago.