Colruyt has taken a part of the Nutella assortment off the shelves: no jars of 400 grams are available at the chain. The retailer is putting pressure on the price negotiations and Ferrero is not the only victim.
“Constructive talks”
In the Colruyt stores, 900-gram jars of Nutella are still available, but no 400-gram jars. The familiar message appears on the shelves again: “Temporarily unavailable. Please accept our apologies.” Colruyt and Nutella producer Ferrero cannot agree on price increases, according to newspaper De Tijd.
The parties involved don’t wish to comment on the conflict. “Supermarkets are free to determine the range. We continue to have constructive talks and hope that our customers will soon be able to find their trusted product again”, Ferrero spokesman Jan De Grave explains to the newspaper. “We understand that this is annoying for our customers and we apologise for the inconvenience. We are convinced that this will be resolved quickly and that we will be able to offer the missing products again, at a correct price for the consumer”, Patti Verdoodt of Colruyt replies.
Difficult annual discussions
It was to be expected that the ongoing annual discussions between retailers and brand manufacturers would be difficult this autumn: almost all manufacturers have already announced price increases, but the supermarket chains fear that they will have difficulty selling these price increases to consumers. This applies all the more to Colruyt, as the retailer always guarantees the lowest prices. The retailer’s attitude was to be watched, and the answer is clear.
You do not take a brand like Nutella off the shelves just like that. Moreover, there are more products missing from Colruyt shelves, including products from Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive and Mondelez. The parties involved do not wish to comment on this. This is not the first time that the retailer has faced similar conflicts in recent years with, among others, Nestlé, Mars, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.
