Rewe’s Chief, Lionel Souque, criticized major brand manufacturers for failing to pass lower raw material costs onto consumers in a timely manner. Citing the chocolate market as an example, Souque noted that while cocoa prices experienced massive increases leading up to last year, raw material costs have been falling for months. Despite this, he argued that large brand producers, particularly Lindt and Mondelēz, were continuing to raise their prices.
He highlighted specific instances of this discrepancy, naming Milka’s “Alpine Milk Chocolate”. According to Souque, the non-binding retail price for the 100-gram bar was 1.49 Euros. However, the product was later reduced to 90 grams, while the store’s procurement cost simultaneously rose. Under these combined conditions, Souque stated that selling the product for less than 1.99 Euros was difficult to achieve, calling the situation absurd. By contrast, he pointed out that Rewe had significantly lowered the price for its own 100-gram private label bar, initially dropping it to 89 cents and then further to 79 cents.
Regarding the ongoing debate about lowering VAT on staple goods, Souque stated that Rewe would naturally pass such a tax reduction onto prices, similar to what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he cautioned that this could not be guaranteed for every single item, predicting rather a mixed approach across the entire range of products rather than item-by-item adjustments. He explained that while a two percent VAT reduction might allow an item priced at 99 cents to potentially fall to 97 cents, for a product costing 1.09 Euros, the leap down to 99 cents would be considerably larger.