“It would be a big blow”: at the Chocolate Show, standing behind his stand where small square ganaches are lined up, Maxime Henry confides that he is “worried” about the threat of tougher taxes for chocolate makers. “If taxes have to increase tomorrow, we will have no other choice but to increase our prices. (…) But it would be hard, because we have been fighting for five years to maintain our prices,” says the chocolatier who took over the family business Maison Henry in 2019. In five years, energy costs , sugar and, more recently, cocoa have increased significantly. Other artisans mention a possible reduction in their margins, or portions.
If these taxation projects were to materialize, Sylvain Garcette, co-manager of the small business of four employees based in Tarn Ô Gourmandises d'Alice, present at the show for the second year in a row, would prefer “perhaps to drop by 100 at 90 grams the weight of [sa] tablet”, convinced that too high a cost would be a “disincentive to purchase” for its customers.
Chocolate makers employ 11,000 people
The buyers of the Pralus house, which has 19 stores in France and a turnover of 25 million euros, are “chocolate lovers, ready to pay a certain price”, analyzes Hugo Pralus, production manager of the chocolate factory. family, “but there is a limit. » The increase by Pralus in the price of a 75% dark chocolate bar of one euro, the first in 10 years, driven by sugar inflation, did not shake sales volumes this year. But a tax would again have “a direct impact on the price of the final product”, deplores Hugo Pralus, who does not rule out the possibility of reducing his margin rate, currently “around 15%” for a classic chocolate bar.
Artisan chocolatiers represent 5% of sales in the French chocolate market and employ 11,000 people, according to their confederation. Among them, 87% are companies with fewer than 20 employees.
Daniel Mercier, president of the association of committed chocolatiers, denounced a tax which he considers counterproductive and which “risks leading consumers towards lower-end products”. Even though artisans have made efforts in recent years to “reduce the sugar and fat contents” of their products, unlike manufacturers. “If sugar needs to be reduced, it may be for products in which it should not be found. In canned vegetables, prepared meals, such as lasagna. Chocolate is not necessarily consumed daily,” added the president of chocolatiers and confectioners, Thierry Lalet.
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