PepsiCo's products have always been highly sought after by global consumers, including Pepsi Cola, Pepsi potato chips, and Quaker oats, which have been integrated into many people's daily lives and become essential products on shelves around the world.
However, on Thursday, a spokesman for Carrefour's French supermarket said that the Pepsi Cola product shelves in Carrefour stores in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium would be pasted with slogans, indicating that the supermarkets would no longer purchase related brand products because of the unacceptable price rise.
This means that customers in these four European countries will no longer be able to buy PepsiCo products in Carrefour supermarkets, declaring that the retail giant Carrefour and the global food giant PepsiCo have entered a hot business war, and Carrefour is using its channel advantages to attack PepsiCo's pricing power.
According to Carrefour's 2022 annual report, there are more than 9000 stores in the four affected countries, accounting for about two-thirds of the 14348 stores in Carrefour's world.
Winning or losing is difficult to determine
PepsiCo pointed out in a statement that it has been negotiating with Carrefour for several months and will continue to make sincere efforts to ensure its product supply. However, since Thursday, some stores of Carrefour have stopped selling products such as Qiduo and 7Up, and Pepsi Cola and some products are still on the shelves.
However, consumers in supermarkets not only did not complain, but also enjoyed eating melons happily. Edith Carpentier, a shopper from Paris, said she was not surprised at all that the products on the shelves had become too expensive and she had avoided buying those products.
Last October, PepsiCo announced that demand remained strong and continued to rise, with plans to raise prices slightly and raise its annual profit outlook for the third time. Prior to this, PepsiCo had raised prices for seven consecutive quarters.
This approach of "chasing inflation with price increases" clearly puts pressure on supermarket revenue and forces retailers to demand price reductions in a new round of price negotiations. In addition to Carrefour, grocery retailers in several countries, including Germany and Belgium, also stopped placing additional orders with some consumer goods companies.
Carrefour is obviously one of the most negotiating companies in the retail industry, and also one of the retailers who are most willing to challenge the price strategy of consumer goods companies. Last year, it launched a campaign to curb inflation by posting warnings on small-sized products of brands such as Pepsi to remind consumers.
However, from a commercial perspective, Carrefour's move is also risky. James Walton, Chief Economist of the Journal Distribution Research Institute, pointed out that supermarkets in France have always hoped to remove unwanted business from their purchase orders. However, the problem is that if there is nothing customers want on the shelves, supermarkets will not benefit, and food brands will certainly not.