Inflation: what are the French doing to pay less at the supermarket?

What are the French doing to save on their food budget in the face of inflation never seen in France? Faced with rising prices, 82% of French people have changed their food purchasing behavior according to the OpinionWay study “The French and food brands 2022” carried out for Bonial. We learn in particular that in this inflationary context, French consumers are proving to be even more multi-loyal than last year and now go to an average of 5 stores to do their food shopping. To investigate changing shopping behaviors in the face of rising food prices, the survey asked consumers if they had changed their food shopping behaviors to deal with rising prices.

Results :

Among the main lessons of this survey, we learn that 67% (8 pts) of French people now consider prices to be “very important” in choosing where to shop, ahead of the choice of products (56%, 3 pts) and accessibility (56%, 4 pts). Regarding the places favored by the French to make their food purchases since inflation, the OpinionWay survey carried out for Bonial specifies that 87% of French people regularly make their food purchases in supermarkets, 23% by drive or delivery and 21% directly from local producers. And among these supermarkets favored by the French, the brands where the French do most of their shopping are E.Leclerc (24%, 1 pt), Carrefour (21%) and Intermarché (12%).

However, Lidl, Leclerc and Aldi are the food brands perceived as the most attractive in terms of price. Finally, Leclerc, Lidl and Carrefour are the brands perceived as offering the most attractive promotions. Note that Lidl is also one of the big winners of inflation on French food purchases. Leader in price attractiveness, the brand continues to widen the gap with its competitors on this criterion and records an increase in visits to its points of sale.

In this context of rising prices, 34% of French people continue to buy organic food products occasionally, 26% regularly, 22% very rarely and 12% never do so. 73% of those who consume them buy them from generalist brands (Carrefour, E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Auchan, etc.), compared to only 27% from local producers.

Note that to reach these conclusions, the study surveyed 5,004 food shoppers at least once a month between August 1 and August 11, 2022.