French supermarkets offer ‘anti-inflation’ pricing on essentials
Casino is the latest to act but many of the major stores have various deals in place
French supermarkets have launched a number of offers this year to help shoppers combat inflation
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Most of France’s major supermarkets are offering low prices on everyday items in a bid to help shoppers with the impact of inflation.
Casino, E.Leclerc, Intermarché and Carrefour have each announced plans to offer a selection of everyday items at low prices.
Casino supermarkets have fixed 1,000 of their ‘everyday products’ at less than €2 until December 31.
These products include groceries such as pasta, yoghurt and orange juice, as well as personal hygiene and household cleaning products.
Meanwhile Intermarché started with a campaign of 500 anti-inflation products, which it has now expanded to 1,000 “purchasing power products.”
Grocery, hygiene, and cleaning items are included, as well as fresh food products such as those from in-store fishmongers, butchers and bakeries.
Other measures in place
The Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, put in place a special ‘trimestre anti-inflation’ earlier this year, which saw major French supermarkets agree to keep essential food prices low for three months.
The scheme will now continue until the end of 2023 with a number of supermarkets keeping their prices down for shoppers.
E.Leclerc and Carrefour have also said they will sell both petrol and diesel fuel at cost price, to help consumers.
Other supermarkets will sell fuel at cost price on certain weekends of the month until the end of the year. TotalEnergies which run over 3,000 service stations in France say their €1.99 per litre fuel cap will remain in place until inflation ends.
‘Shrinkflation’
Prices are continuing to rise across France with food inflation reaching 9.6% year-on-year in September, shown by the latest figures from the state statistics bureau Insee.
Another practice which is impacting shopper’s wallets is ‘shrinkflation’, the name by which manufacturers making products smaller without changing the price is known.
Carrefour has put stickers on its shelves warning shoppers where packet contents are getting smaller while prices are not, in order to name (and shame) the brands doing this.
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