Report: French Food Inflation Not Due to Greed

Nov. 7, 2022

Ukraine, bad weather and other factors are fingered instead.

Food inflation in France is not being caused by profiteering by food processing companies or anyone else, according to a report from the French government.

“There were no profiteers of inflation in the food industry,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in quoted remarks.

The Finance Ministry issued a report Nov. 6 that examined the causes of price increases for food, which has become the largest single driver of inflation in France. It found that since 2019, food prices have gone up for reasons that include the war in Ukraine, bad harvests due to adverse weather, bird flu outbreaks and labor shortages.

It also found that profit margins have declined significantly for certain food categories, including pasta, ground beef and chicken cutlets.

About the Author

Pan Demetrakakes | Senior Editor

Pan has written about the food and beverage industry for more than 25 years. His areas of coverage have included formulations, processing, packaging, marketing and retailing. Pan worked for Food Processing Magazine for six years in the 1990s, where he was operations editor (his current role), touring dozens of food plants of every description. He has also worked for Packaging and Food & Beverage Packaging magazines, the latter as chief editor, during which he won three ASBPE awards. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in communications.