Pepsi Products Pulled from European Carrefour Stores Amid Pricing Dispute

Carrefour, a leading French supermarket chain, has halted sales of PepsiCo items due to significant price hikes.

The change affects popular products such as Pepsi, 7up, and Lay's chips, with stores in France informing customers through signs explaining the discontinuation. Coverage from CNN's affiliate BFM-TV also notes that this decision extends to Carrefour outlets in Italy, Spain, and Belgium.

This action by Carrefour intensifies ongoing negotiations between retailers and major consumer brands over pricing policies. Previously, Carrefour launched a campaign to alert customers to "shrinkflation," a scenario where product sizes decrease while prices do not, even when input costs stabilize.

Carrefour's CEO, Alexandre Bompard, has criticized consumer brands for not reducing prices in line with drops in raw material costs. Conversely, PepsiCo's CEO, Ramon L. Laguarta, predicts continued inflation and price maintenance for PepsiCo products.

The pricing conflict is not exclusive to PepsiCo and Carrefour; other consumer goods giants like Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble have all faced pushback from retailers after raising prices due to increased production costs. In one notable instance, Kraft Heinz temporarily ceased supplying products to UK's Tesco over pricing disputes.

As high prices drive customers towards more affordable alternatives, Carrefour aims to boost its private-label offerings to comprise 40% of its sales within three years.