The association of food SMEs and ETIs welcomes the agreement reached on March 15 by deputies and senators, during a joint committee, tending to strengthen the balance of commercial relations between suppliers and distributors. A bill carried by Renaissance MP Frédéric Descrozaille. After the government plan to support the food industries, food SMEs and ETIs could benefit from the effects of the Descrozaille law.
Two measures defended for a long time by the association underline the desire of parliamentarians to put an end to a system harmful to French food sovereignty, whose first victims are SMEs and mid-sized companies in the sector, declares Adepale in a press release. Firstly, the use of foreign purchasing centers by distribution had enabled the establishment of an unfair system to the detriment of manufacturers. On the other hand, the disproportion of logistics penalties weighed on the activity of French SMEs and ETIs, limiting their investment capacity to modernize the productive system. On the emblematic measure provided for in Article 3 of the text, Adepale underlines that the obligation to negotiate in good faith and the repeal of the obligation for the supplier to have to respect a mandatory notice period of several months, at the previous year's rate, if the negotiation is not concluded by March 1, will allow a rebalancing of commercial relations for the benefit of upstream agriculture and French SMEs and mid-sized companies in the food sector. The association regrets, however, that this measure could not be put in place for the round of commercial negotiations concluded at the beginning of March..
Large retailers demand the reopening of negotiations
Adepale would like to note that the Commercial Solidarity Pact, signed last December under the aegis of the ministers responsible for industry and consumption, had the effect of forcing major retail players to better take into account the rising energy costs of French SMEs (see Leader Meeting n° 220, February 2023). She recalls that the integration of ETIs into this pact would contribute to protecting a larger part of the industrial fabric in the territory.. For Jérôme Foucault, president of Adepale, “after the support plan for the food industries, the vote on the Descrozaille law underlines a real change in the appreciation of French political decision-makers on the need to defend our industrial fabric. However, we remain attentive to the extremely strong pressure from mass distribution which is already demanding the reopening of commercial negotiations from June, while we have not passed on all of our cost increases, especially energy, and that the investment needs are gigantic. »
