The “big night” on the transparency of price formation at the Meeting is still waiting. To the question of why, in this department of the Indian Ocean, consumer prices were on average, in 2022, according to INSEE, 9% higher than in mainland France, and why food costs 37% more expensive , respond the members of the Observatory. of prices, margins and revenues (OPMR) support “face many difficulties” and to “relative opacity of the mass distribution sector” on the island. The objective that the OPMR has set is, for the moment, “out of reach”.
This independent organization, created abroad to study the cost of living, presented, on Friday, October 4, in a plenary assembly, a provisional report on its work. “decoded” price formation on a panel of 21 products. The members of the observatory questioned the directors of six of the seven main retail brands on the island. Three represent 80% of the sector’s global turnover (2.5 billion euros). The supermarkets and hypermarkets of the Bernard Hayot group occupy a leading position.
One brand declined to respond. The other six did not present all the requested documents. There remain many gray areas. That’s why OPMR presents five strong proposals for greater transparency. In the form of “pressure shot” intended for distributors, its managers half-trust.
“It’s time for this to end”
In particular, it involves imposing the legal obligation – which is not respected – to communicate the accounts of foreign companies, to electronically transmit receipt data to INSEE, “It is necessary to have a real photograph during investigations”or even the elimination of the controversial practice of back margins (discounts applied by a supplier to a distributor) to replace them with invoice discounts that could benefit consumers more. One more mechanism ” transparent “ and less “inflationary”.
Coincidentally, this document comes at a time when several unions on the island are calling for mobilization against the high cost of living. “Things are moving in the West Indies, things must move here too, released, Tuesday 1Ahem October, Marie-Hélène Dor, departmental secretary of the FSU teachers’ union, on the occasion of the half-hearted demonstration in Réunion to demand salaries and pensions. The abusive prices of supermarkets, it is time for this to end. »
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