The greatest challenge of the century is the ecological transition. But it won’t happen without a food transition. As conventional agriculture is the #1 cause of global warming and biodiversity loss. In addition to this heavy environmental cost, there are health and social consequences. Obesity is increasing. And the condition of farmers is more precarious than ever. 

There are also, unexpectedly, business costs. The distribution model based on price wars, low-quality food products at low prices, is becoming increasingly unprofitable for the players who set it up. As margins are getting lower and field yields keep declining. Obviously, everybody is losing. The planet, consumers, farmers, even retailers.

As the inventor of the hypermarket in France, we have historically been part of the problem. We had to accelerate the transformation of the company from a price war model to a food quality model, not only for the planet, but for business.

We launched Act for Food, a program of concrete actions for the food transition.

We started by tackling the heart of the problem: the agrochemical lobby’s attack on our agricultural biodiversity. With a founding act, the Black Supermarket, we fought against an unfair law that forbade sale and cultivation of farmers’ seeds, destroying 90% of agricultural biodiversity. It changed the law and public opinion on Carrefour. 

This founding act deeply influenced the company and encouraged us to pursue the most important transformation of our history. We launched Act for Food worldwide. Our new strategic and creative platform. From then on, all of our campaigns became brand acts: each act being a concrete action of Carrefour with a creative angle. As it turns out, when you’re using advertising budget to actually change things, you can do a lot: acts to make our food system better for consumers’ health, farmers, the planet...

Facing the challenge to transform the company from a price war model to a food quality model, we had to find a creative platform strong enough to transform the culture internally, and our public image.

The problem: Carrefour suffered from the « big bad wolf syndrome ». As a leader, consumers associated Carrefour with everything that went wrong with the hypermarket model, starting with the standardization of our food system and agriculture. « When you’re big, you’re bad » You’re just fighting for your revenue, at the expense of everything else.

Even if Carrefour had long been committed to bettering food quality. This insidious idea prevented Carrefour from being able to truly reinvent and transform.

To win back consumers and accelerate transformation, we reframed what it means to be a leader. Turning the leadership of Carrefour into a positive, putting our power at the service of bettering food.

Act for Food is a strategic and creative platform that led a deep transformation of Carrefour, as every one of our campaigns is an Act for the food transition.

Worldwide

Acts to:

-Change a European law to re-authorize the cultivation of farmers’ seeds (BlackSupermarket).

-Co-create with customers the largest vegan label

-Co-create Loop, the first circular service for reusable packaging on e-commerce.

-Finance 60,000farmers in our agro-ecology program.

-Remake our Carrefour label with the highest quality standards.

-Deploy blockchain-technology for traceability.

-Transform how we negotiate shelf space with brands to encourage quality.

Nationally

Each country benefits from acts specific to local issues. Notable examples:

-In France, an act to finance the conversion of 2,000farmers to organic farming, an act to defend 100% French organic food…

-In Brazil, an act to fight against food price inflation by carving prices in steel on our shelves.

-In China, an act for food safety.