Hats off to to French based supermarket chain, Carrefour after recently discontinuing Pepsi and Lays products from their product lineup in over 4000 stores throughout Europe. Citing Pepsi’s net change in pricing from a year earlier of 18 percentage points as unacceptable, the bold action of Carrefour’s management is a welcomed response to consumers world-wide.
What began during the Covid-19 pandemic fueled by inflation headlines, companies used this excuse to gouge consumers well beyond their cost of inputs. This practice was first highlighted nearly two years ago on this WJ blog. Below is an excerpt from that post…
…What I am going to talk about is something a little more personal. While I pride myself on staying up with the latest in technology, I am clearly old school in a lot of ways. So, what I am going to talk about is Old Spice. For you lesser-informed millennials, Old Spice is not a Captain Morgan spiced rum knock-off, but rather a line of personal care products reserved for and coveted by the baby boomer generation.
The current rate of inflation has not been seen since the 1970’s during the storied presidential career of Jimmy Carter. I will spare the readers a rant and rave critique of the current administration economic policies because I am not sure that they deserve all the blame. Well – maybe most of it, but that is not the point I want to make. The point is that corporate America is using the current inflation headlines as a free pass to raise prices at will. This is worth repeating. Corporate America is raising prices faster than their cost inputs just because they can do so with impunity. Despite all the gloom and doom that they are shoveling upon the American consumer, profit margins are soaring along with their stock prices. Witness, the Dow, S&P 500 all closing 2021 in record territory.
Now with Europe accounting for about 14% of Pepsi’s global revenue, a “come to Jesus” response from them will be inevitable. /wj
Rants, Raves & Reflections 