Groupement Mousquetaires has hit out at allegations the French retailer took part in a cartel for organic products in the country.
The company told Just Food it was among a clutch of companies that received a “grievance notification” from France’s Autorité de la Concurrence late last year.
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Mousquetaires said in the notice France’s anti-trust regulator claimed the companies had been engaged in an “alleged collective strategy of artificial differentiation between distribution channels”.
“We strongly contest this grievance,” the Netto and Intermarché owner said.
Reports from local news outlets including LSA and Libération, citing Agence France Presse (AFP), suggest Carrefour and Mousquetaires’ Intermarché are among the retailers under scrutiny.
The Autorité declined to comment on the news when approached by Just Food, while Carrefour could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.
According to Libération, in a universal registration document for 2024 viewed by AFP, Carrefour said the group’s subidiaries Sobio, CSF and Greenweez had been accused of “coordinating, starting in November 2016, to implement a collective strategy” to “artificially segment, according to brands, the distribution of organic products between, on the one hand, the specialised distribution channel [organic stores and online sites], and, on the other hand, the conventional distribution channel”.
The French retail major told AFP that it had been “accused of an alleged concerted practice with Synabio,” the French trade union for organic agri-food businesses. It said the allegations centred around “a segmentation of organic products based on general and specialist networks during meetings within this trade union”.
The group said, however, “Sobio and CSF have never joined the Synabio union and Greenweez has only participated in one meeting, and Carrefour has never acquiesced to the alleged common line adopted within Synadis Bio.”
It added that it had responded “in February” to the Autorité, “contesting all the grievances notified”.
