- Title: Carrefour CEO says inflation crisis turning consumers into penny-pinchers
- Date: 30th August 2022
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (AUGUST 30, 2022) (REUTERS) SHOPPER CARRYING SHOPPING BAG PEOPLE WALKING IN FRONT OF SUPERMARKET DEMANDOLX WALKING OUT OF STORE (SOUNDBITE) (French) 50-YEAR-OLD SOPHROLOGIST AND MOTHER OF THREE, TIPHAINE DEMANDOLX, SAYING: "Of course, I'm more careful, especially with fruits and vegetables. I really look for the best bang for my buck. The same goes with meat, we limit our meat consumption, we're careful with that, too. The same goes with snacks for the children, we buy fewer readymade products and I rather make them at home when I can." MONOPRIX BRAND SIGN (SOUNDBITE) (French) 30-YEAR-OLD FASHION DESIGN STUDENT, MORGANE LANOUE, SAYING: "I try to buy sustainable products, but rather those branded as Monoprix (generic supermarket brand) instead of buying more expensive brands." BURLOT STANDING WITH TWINS (SOUNDBITE) (French) 42-YEAR-OLD MOTHER OF TWINS, MARION BURLOT, SAYING: "We'll especially stop buying things we don't need, which we used to buy in the past, as a first measure. That includes, for example, plates, decorations, we'll stop buying all those things to go back to a price for a grocery cart that we used to pay before." PEOPLE WALKING BY THE SUPERMARKET
- Embargoed: 13th September 2022 15:48
- Keywords: Carrefour France consumers consumption spending habits supermarket
- Location: PARIS AND EVREUX, FRANCE
- City: PARIS AND EVREUX, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Europe,Economic Events
- Reuters ID: LVA006156730082022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Cost-conscious French consumers are ditching fish, buying cheaper meat, and snubbing organic food to save money on their shopping, the head of Europe's largest food retailer said on Tuesday (August 30).
Carrefour Chief Executive Alexandre Bompard said economists' debates about when inflation would peak were futile, and what mattered was consumers' new, entrenched penny-pinching approach to shopping.
"You make choices in favor of the lowest prices, and sales. I'm not going to buy beef, but the cheapest pork; I'm not going to buy fish; I'm not going to buy organics," Bompard said.
"This phenomenon is here and it's deep and it's been gaining momentum in recent weeks," he told a round table at the Medef French employers federation's annual post-summer conference.
Inflation has surged to record levels in major economies over the last year, due at first to strained post-COVID supply chains and more recently to sky-rocketing energy prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.
Inflation in Carrefour's home market France hit 6.8% in July, the highest rate since France began using European Union methodology to calculate the data in the early 1990s.
France has shifted the cost of high inflation off consumers' shoulders more aggressively than other eurozone countries by capping gas and electricity prices and boosting incomes, with pay rises for civil servants and pensioners, and subsidies for the poor.
Consumers in the country said they have changed their spending habits when it comes to grocery shopping, buying less meat and organic products, and instead settling for cheap or generic-brand ones.
"We'll especially stop buying things we don't need, which we used to buy in the past, as a first measure... We'll stop buying all those things to go back to the price for a grocery cart that we used to pay before," said Marion Burlot, a 42-year-old mother of twins.
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