France wants to ban redflation from November

“Redflation”, the procedure of some industries that reduce the quantity of product in a packaging without lowering the price, will be prohibited in France from November, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has announced.

“We are going to ban it. Since November, all products subject to quantity changes will have to indicate this on the labels to avoid further misleading the consumer,” Borne said in an interview published this Sunday in the newspaper Le Parisien.

This is an increasingly widespread practice in France, as reported by consumer organizations in recent weeks after investigative visits to supermarkets.

They add that in a good number of cases, the packed volume decreases, and the price not only does not decrease but even increases.. A phenomenon that has occurred on practically all supermarket shelves, such as those for ice cream, drinks and all types of food.

In one specific case, the combination of volume reduction and price increase on a bag of dog food resulted in a price per kilogram increase of 113%.

The Carrefour distribution chain, the most important in France, began last week to mark on its own the products that had suffered this practice, in an attempt to show that the responsibility lies with the manufacturer.

Carrefour labels say: “This product has reduced its content and increased its price.”

The organization '60 million consumers' has criticized, however, that some of the company's products have also reduced their volume without lowering the price.

The prime minister has also announced that fuel distributors will be able to sell products at a loss – breaking a prohibition that dates back to 1963 – to try to stop the spiral of fuel inflation.

This authorization will be extended “for a period limited to a few months,” said Borne, who foresees “tangible results” for consumers without the Government having to subsidize fuel as it did last year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This year, fuel prices have risen due to the increase in the price of oil as a result of production cuts by some large producing countries in OPEC and its allies (OPEC+), led by Saudi Arabia.