"Cheapflation": Fraud squad finds "little" hidden deterioration in food quality

The period of high inflation in food prices had raised fears of a hidden deterioration in revenues to reduce costs, a practice called " cheapflation ", but the fraud squad found "few" cases of this nature during an investigation carried out in 2023.

The General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) inspected 651 products, pâtés and cooked hams, ready meals such as shepherd's pie, lasagne, or salmon rillettes, it explains in a publication dated Monday on its website.

"Only 5% showed an anomaly that could be related to cheapflation."

This Bercy department responsible for consumer protection defines "cheapflation" as a reformulation of the composition of food products "by replacing one or more expensive ingredients with others that are less expensive and of lower quality, without this change appearing on the product labeling."

Among the breaches, "an injunction was sent to a professional for a ready meal announcing a quantity of 'beef tongue' greater than that measured" by the Fraud Prevention Agency. And a professional was fined 30,000 euros for misleading commercial practice: he "had reduced by 2% the quantity of comté cheese present in a puff pastry" without changing the labeling.

However, during this investigation, the Fraud Prevention Agency noted some breaches unrelated to "cheapflation", for example "the presence of an animal species not announced on the product label", the presence of "beetroot red and nitrate, despite the claim 'no preservatives'" or even "the presence of an unauthorized ingredient".

In total, the DGCCRF issued, in addition to the PV for the comté puff pastry, 29 warnings, 10 injunctions including "7 breaches of labelling rules and 3 relating to cheapflation", and 2 administrative reports ("for marketing merguez without mentioning the presence of pork and chicken species in the name of the food and in the list of ingredients, and for marketing a charcuterie product without mentioning the presence of veal").

In February 2024, the consumer protection association Foodwatch had pinned several agro-industrialists who had degraded the recipes of products well known to the French, for example surimi sticks less rich in fish flesh. A practice that is not illegal if the information on the packaging is correct.