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Due to an increased tax on sugary drinks, France has become a less attractive destination for food shopping. The popularity of the Netherlands is also declining. More Belgians are now shopping in Luxembourg and Germany.
More expensive drinks
Belgians are shopping less often in French supermarkets: cross-border purchases in France fell by 8.7% in the second quarter of the year. The sharpest declines were in the categories of coffee, tea and cocoa (-22%), milk, cheese and eggs (-13.6%) and water, soft drinks and juices (-12%). This is according to figures shared with La Libre by Fevia, the federation of the Belgian food industry. The decline is partly due to the increased sugar tax in France, which resulted in a price increase of 9.1%.
Cross-border purchases in the Netherlands also fell sharply, by 11.5%. This is a consequence of the price war between Jumbo and Albert Heijn in Flanders: Flemish people no longer need to cross the border to take advantage of “Dutch prices”. At the same time, there was an increase in cross-border purchases in Luxembourg and Germany of 3.7% during the same period. In the water, soft drinks and juices category, Belgian purchases there rose by around 32%.
France remains by far the most important market for cross-border purchases, accounting for 223 million euros of the 343 million euros spent by Belgian shoppers across the border in the first half of the year. Fevia fears that cross-border purchases will rise again following the introduction of a high litter tax in Belgium.