From January 1, restaurant vouchers should no longer be usable in supermarkets, except for prepared meals. While restaurateurs are rejoicing, consumers are worried.
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On this New Year's Eve,It's time to prepare for the festivities. Customers are busy in the supermarket to buy the last ingredients they need for the evening. Some still pay for part of their shopping in meal vouchers. However, from January 1, this is no longer possible. An exemption from the law extended the use of meal vouchers to all food products in supermarkets in 2022.
With the censorship of the budget in the Assembly, the measure was not renewed in 2025. A boon for Paul Bodelle, a restaurateur who hopes to attract additional customers: “This would allow more people to go out on weekday evenings. It would be all good for us. Anything that would allow people to go to restaurants more often is welcome.“.
For their part, customers are worried about seeing this possibility disappear. “When we have a fairly high number of restaurant vouchers, if we can no longer use them to do our shopping as well, it will pose a problem for everyone. Colleagues around me are very disappointed with what is going to happen. When we see the increase in prices with inflation, for people, it has become useful to be able to use them for shopping as well. I hope that all this will change because otherwise it will no longer be of any use.“, deplores a mother.
It is for the lowest incomes that this is the most worrying. This young worker fears that his purchasing power will be too impacted: “Life is becoming more and more expensive and we are finding it more and more difficult to finance our food. Restaurant vouchers are an aid that allows us to finance shopping for €25 per day and that's nothing. Knowing this, I'm going to be a little more careful, but I find it a shame because the main use of my meal ticket card was shopping.“.
Only processed products can still be purchased with meal vouchers. However, in the Amiens region, at least 3 supermarkets are maintaining the payment rules in force in 2024, as Vincent Valibouse, supermarket director, explains: “From Thursday, we will continue to accept restaurant vouchers for all food items.“.
I didn't really see the point.
Vincent Valibouse, supermarket manager in Longueau
It relies on a new legal provision, from the resumption of the parliamentary session on January 15: “We still think that there is more than a 90% chance that the law will be extended, so we see no point in going backwards. I think that state services will be relatively lenient given that the 15-day delay is due to the change of government. If we had to make the change, we would have had to make updates on the crates to reverse all products that were eligible“.
The store manager prefers to wait to find out more before taking time-consuming steps: “The staff should have re-explained to customers why we no longer accepted restaurant vouchers for all food items. If we have to explain everything to them again for two weeks to, in fact, authorize them again from January 15, I didn't really see the point.“.
This decision does not bind other brands, which must position themselves on a case-by-case basis. The only certainty is that the daily ceiling of €25 will increase to €19 in supermarkets in 2025.
With Anthony Halpern / FTV
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