“A loss of 576 million euros”: why meal vouchers could soon no longer be usable in supermarkets ?

For several days, restaurateurs have been calling for an end to the relaxation of the rules for using meal vouchers. A measure that is supposed to end on December 31, 2024.

This advantage was supposed to end at the end of 2023, before finally being extended by an additional year to protect the purchasing power of the French. But now the question is back on the table. Will the use of restaurant vouchers in large retail chains be renewed for 2025??

This time, restaurateurs are demanding an end to this relaxation of which they would be indirect victims. “This extension to all food products, since August 2022, favors large and medium-sized stores, to the detriment of local businesses: restaurants, food stores, bakeries, caterers, butchers,…”, deplores the National Union of Food and Fast Food (SNARR) in a press release, relayed by BFMTV.

According to the National Commission for Restaurant Vouchers (CNTR), this is almost a billion euros in figures of meal voucher business that has been absorbed by large and medium-sized stores in just one year. The sector would represent nearly a third of the meal voucher market at the end of the second quarter of 2024, our colleagues explain.

A restaurant voucher that has become a "shopping trolley voucher" ?

“Over 1 year, this represents a loss of 576 million euros for restaurateurs and a transfer of activity of 756 million euros to the benefit of mass distribution. Barely 40% of meal vouchers are currently spent in restaurants,” declares the Union of Trades and Industries of the Hotel Industry in a press release.

The restaurant unions therefore hope to return to the old use of meal vouchers. “A new extension of the use for all food products would certainly transform the restaurant voucher into a shopping cart voucher”, specifies the press release from UMIH Restauration.

"We are warning about the progressive misuse of the restaurant voucher. Initially designed to provide a solution for employees to eat, it is gradually transforming into a blank check", explains Romain Girard, President of the National Union of Food and Fast Food, on the microphone of BFMTV. "If the inflationary context could justify the broadening of its scope of action, it is now crucial to refocus it.”