France's Carrefour Halts PepsiCo Product Sales Over Price Hikes

By Mauro Orru

French supermarket owner Carrefour stopped selling PepsiCo products such as Pepsi-Cola, Doritos and 7Up due to what the group called unacceptable price increases, the latest tussle between the grocer and food manufacturers over pricing.

A Carrefour spokesman said Thursday that the group had decided to add notes to shelves at stores in France explaining that it is no longer selling eight PepsiCo brands. Notes seen by The Wall Street Journal show the company is no longer selling Lay's, Doritos, Benenuts, Alvalle, Lipton, Pepsi, 7Up and Quaker products.

Consumer prices have been an area of great concern in France, after food price inflation surged into double digits in 2022 and reached nearly 16% in March 2023. In December, food inflation was 7.1%. The French government has also criticized major manufacturers and said it would push them to bring down prices.

Carrefour's announcement on PepsiCo products comes roughly four months after the retailer began attaching labels to products it claims are subject to so-called shrinkflation--when the quantity of a product diminishes in its packaging but the retail price is unchanged.

Carrefour will also add the notes to stores in Italy, Spain and Belgium, the spokesman said. He declined to comment further.

PepsiCo didn't respond to a request for comment.

Joshua Kirby contributed to this article.

Write to Mauro Orru at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 04, 2024 10:58 ET (15:58 GMT)

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