French supermarket chain Carrefour issued price warnings on a range of products, from Lindt chocolate to Lipton iced tea, to pressure consumer goods suppliers Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever to help fight inflation, Reuters reported.

Carrefour is putting stickers on products that have shrunk in size but cost more even after commodity prices have fallen to win back consumer support as the retailer prepares to compete with the world’s biggest brands in talks that will begin soon and conclude by October. 15.

“Obviously, the purpose of stigmatizing these products is to be able to tell manufacturers to reconsider their pricing policies,” Stéphane Bompais, Carrefour’s director of customer relations, said in an interview.

Carrefour chief executive Alexandre Bompard, who also heads the retail lobby group FDC, has repeatedly said consumer goods companies are not cooperating in efforts to cut prices on thousands of staples despite falling commodity prices.

He is backed in this effort by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who summoned 75 major retailers and consumer groups to his ministry in June to press for lower prices.

After a round of meetings last month, Le Maire said Unilever, Nestle and PepsiCo were among the companies not cooperating on pricing.

What is written now on the labels of some products of the giants Pepsi, Nestle and Unilever

Since Monday, Carrefour has marked 26 products in its French stores with labels that read: “This product has seen a decrease in volume or weight and an increase in the actual price by the supplier.”

For example, Carrefour said a bottle of PepsiCo’s sugar-free Lipton iced tea with peach flavor was reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 litres, effectively increasing the price per liter by 40%.

Guigoz baby milk powder, made by Nestle, fell from 900 grams to 830 grams, while the weight of Viennetta ice cream cake, made by Unilever, decreased to 320 grams from 350 grams earlier.

Lindt and PepsiCo did not respond to a request for comment. Nestle and Unilever declined to comment.

Consumer groups say “trickle-down inflation,” also called “shrinkage inflation,” is a widespread practice that also blames supermarkets such as Carrefour with its own-brand products.

Carrefour’s decision to embarrass suppliers, escalation of conflict with corporations

France, like other European countries, has been trying for months to help consumers in the face of skyrocketing living costs by pressuring big companies to freeze or cut prices on food and transport – so far with mixed results.

But Carrefour’s decision to name and shame suppliers marks an escalation in the war of declarations between retailers and large corporations.

Product warnings are present at all Carrefour stores in France and will remain in place until the affected suppliers agree to lower prices, Bompe said.

The retailer may extend the warning to other products, but has no plans to extend the initiative to other countries.

Last month, Le Maire said consumer goods firms and retailers had agreed to postpone annual price talks, normally held next year, until September. The result of the negotiations will be a reduction in prices from January, he said.

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