PepsiCo and Carrefour have reportedly resolved a pricing dispute that led to the French retailer delisting its food and beverage brands across Europe earlier this year.
PepsiCo snacks and beverages are now back in stock at Carrefour stores in France, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Just Food has contacted both companies to confirm which brands have been relisted and where.
In January, Carrefour stopped selling PepsiCo products such as Lay’s and Doritos crisps, and 7Up drinks and Lipton tea in France due to what it called “unacceptable price increases”.
It had signalled in October “modest” price rises were coming, but did not specify in which markets.
The boycott was followed by branches in Spain, Italy, Belgium and Poland. It is not clear whether each of these countries has restocked the items.
The Paris-headquartered supermarket giant put up banners in the outlets saying “we no longer sell this brand due to an unacceptable price increase”.
At the time, a PepsiCo spokesperson said: “We’ve been in discussion with Carrefour for many months and we will continue to engage in good faith in order to try to ensure that our products are available.”
GlobalData associate analyst Kacper Pilarski said the row between PepsiCo and Carrefour was “unsurprising” following widely publicised criticism of ‘shrinkflation’ – manufacturers reducing product size while maintaining price. However, Pilarski added the geographic scope of the dispute had “raised eyebrows”.
Europe is PepsiCo’s largest geographical market in terms of revenues.
In the US food heavyweight’s 2023 fiscal year, reported in February, the region contributed a greater proportion of final revenue (12.1%) than 2022 (11%).
Europe contributed $13.2bn in revenue to the group total of $91.5bn in 2023, up from $12.7bn in 2022 (of a group total $86.3bn).
Any impact of the boycott on sales is unlikely to be felt until at least the first quarter of 2024.
Meanwhile another supermarket behemoth in France – E. Leclerc – also upped the ante on food and drinks manufacturers in January.
President Michel-Edouard Leclerc took to LinkedIn to voice his opinion in the context of price negotiations taking place.
“Like you, we are fed up with inflation. You feel like you’ve been cheated. And since we’re in a period of negotiations, we’re putting pressure on our supplier,” he said.
“In the coming month, we must therefore convince all those large suppliers who have made the mistake to increase their prices too much, to lower them now, or to moderate them.”
