Carrefour wrote to its suppliers this Tuesday to ask them to affix the scale to their products, in which case it will calculate it for them. Those who refuse outright will be singled out on its site.
The missive was sent this Tuesday, November 12 in the morning. More than 500 industrial suppliers to Carrefour are invited by the distributor to display the Nutri-Score on their products, this still optional indicator which rates the nutritional qualities of foods and drinks from A to E. Failing this, the distributor will itself calculate the Nutri-Score of these products to display it on its website. Manufacturers may, however, object to this, but it will be clearly indicated on the Carrefour website that they have refused to allow this score to be calculated.
“In France, only 40% of products excluding private label brands display the Nutri-Score”regrets Carine Kraus, director of engagement at Carrefour. The distributor, which has displayed this rating on its private label products since 2019, hopes to twist the arm of manufacturers to force them to be more transparent. “The European regulation provides that we can calculate it for them”unless they refuse, she specifies. They have three months to inform the brand of their decision.
Products from favored distributors?
If the Nutri-Score is optional, more and more distributors are pushing manufacturers to carry out this transparent approach towards consumers. A way to improve their image… and highlight their own products: private labels mostly display the Nutri-Score, and have worked to improve their recipes to obtain a better rating. At Carrefour, for example, 1,500 products were improved this year, assures Carine Kraus.
Leading French distributor, ahead of Carrefour, E. Leclerc has already adopted a similar approach on its site. Products that do not have a Nutri-Score are marked with a pictogram with a question mark, indicating that “the brand does not wish to display or provide the information necessary to calculate the Nutri-Score”. Other brands display the scale on their site when it is available for a product, but have not yet chosen to point out the poor performers.
In September, when Danone decided to withdraw the Nutri-Score from some of its products – including drinking yoghurts – which were rated less well since a change in the calculation method, the president of the Groupement Les Mousquetaires (Intermarché) Thierry Cotillard denounced A “bad signal sent to consumers”. “When you are a leader, you have to set an example”tackled the boss, believing that “the Nutri-Score should push us to do better”. The brand indicates, however, that it is not considering action similar to that of Carrefour and E. Leclerc for the moment, while remaining committed to strengthening the Nutri-Score.
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“Change consumer behavior”
Are consumers sensitive to it? “45% of customers look at it before purchasing a product”assures Carine Kraus of Carrefour, convinced that this scale can “change behavior” consumers. “A customer even prefers a bad rating to a product that shows nothing and reassures him less.” E. Leclerc, who already points out the products for which manufacturers have refused to display the Nutri-Score, has not communicated a report on this measure.
At Carrefour, in addition to being singled out by a pictogram on the site, recalcitrants will also be excluded from the tool “Eat better”which offers online customers the opportunity to replace certain products with healthier equivalents. Gold “40% of customers who use this tool change at least one product in their basket”underlines Carine Kraus. The display, on the other hand, will not be deployed in stores. Too complicated at this point. The brand's decision, however, promises to spice up the annual negotiations between distributors and manufacturers, which have already been tense for several years in an inflationary context.
