From farmers to bakers, the entire wheat industry was indignant on Wednesday 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.
Yes, blocking the price of the baguette at 0.29 euros is quite a symbol!
The baguette is a benchmark for the evolution of prices and purchasing power for consumers: investing in this marker allows us to reassure our ability to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
🙌 pic.twitter.com/G4DAOAkIhI
- Michel-Edouard Leclerc (@Leclerc_MEL) January 12, 2022
A declaration of war for the entire wheat sector.
Cereal growers, millers and bakers, as well as the FNSEA, the first agricultural union, denounced in a joint press release "prices that willfully destroy values".
"What Leclerc is doing is shameful"
They are indignant at a "demagogic" announcement when "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 euros ”.
This announcement, which comes at a time when the sectors and the government "are working to fairly remunerate farmers" and when "the know-how and the quality of the French baguette are in the process of being recognized by UNESCO", provoked an outcry.
Read also Why the price of baguette bread is increasing in France
“We are trying to preserve jobs and quality, that comes at a cost: we have to pay the actors correctly, those who plant, who harvest, who assemble the grains and make the flour, and those who make the bread.
What Leclerc is doing is shameful, ”Jean-François Loiseau, president of the National Association of French Mining, told AFP.
A tense context for producers
"Mr. Leclerc will have to explain to us how and how much he pays bakers with a baguette at 29 cents", reacted for his part Christiane Lambert, patron of the FNSEA.
While wheat prices have increased by around 30% in one year, Jean-François Loiseau wonders "where the Leclerc group buys its flour" and "on which products it will compensate".
In addition, Leclerc "breaks prices" in the particularly tense context of annual negotiations between producers and distributors, underline the players in the sector.
Michel-Edouard Leclerc did not hide it: "The flour suppliers have often invoked the increase in the price of wheat, to ask for considerable increases", he declared on Tuesday on BFM-TV, defending his choice on a "flagship", "inflation marker", as it had done for fuel a few months ago.
