Selling British food

[Pads]

In the British shops in France I have noticed that many of them get some one to drive the food over from tesco's asda or Marks and Spencers to resell. This is an Idea Im thinking about my self given the mark up in France on food. Although mine would be a mixed shop selling food from both countrys ... but what I want to know is this legal? or is there some export duty being paid some where ? behind the scenes ?

Thankyou for any info any one can offer on this.

[andyh4]

Should be no duties involved within the EU, but be aware the the VAT rates on food are very different between the UK and France - one of the reasons for the high "mark up".

[velcorin]

To paraphase "nothing's illegal, unless you get caught". So, of course you CAN, however officially you can't.

Selling own brand products, definitely no. The shops own the brand, you would need their permission to resell. Their default position would be no, as their biggest asset is their name/brand, and will not permit it's use outside of their control.

Selling branded products sourced from the UK, is another no. You would need a supply agreement from the brand owners French subsiduary, or an indirect permission granted as when you purchase via cash and carry/wholesaler.

There is also the issue of French laws on package, labelling, supply chain security........................[blink]........French law is very, very, ver, very, very (enough verys?) protective of brands, ask E-Bay.fr.

So, basically you can do it, just don't get caught. A purely personal opinion.......the chances of being caught are nigh on zero, the area you may get tripped up on is when you need to provide purchase invoices for TVA, or tax. Or if, instead of charging the market price, and pocketing the difference as additional proft, you undercut someone, and they moan to the rep, and he starts to investigate where you're getting the stuff. Should be easy enough to avoid those 2 pitfalls.

(As a quick explanation. It's not just about companies protecting brands just so they make more money. We do the same for our AnimalHealth, and Healthcare products. They are not available on the internet, coz of all the Chinese/Indian crap around, simple supplychain security. We need to ensure that you get a legit product, or our brand suffers the bad publicity, as it won't be the knock-off merchants, and it could cost us billions, and tens of thousands of jobs.)

[Pads]

Many thanks for your replys

[Quillan]

We have been using www.britishcornershop.co.uk for ages (no link with them by the way) and have never had a problem. Their normal sized tins of Heinz Baked Beans is 89p, not as cheap as Tesco' I suspect but more than 50% cheaper than at LeClerc. We have a pallet load of 'goodies' delivered every other month for £11.99.

[Will]

You might also like to look at www.epiceriebarenton.com. A lot of this is high-quality British-style food that is made in France, from French raw materials, and supplied to French shops; the rest is imported.

[Nell]

Just a personal opinion - Small "English shops" here selling UK ginger nuts, marmite and pork pies etc... What I always wonder when I see this - What happens if there is a product recall because x number of people are in hospital with some strange food poisoning !!! You won't be told on French TV or French newspapers or indeed on the supermarket window that the product has been recalled. So if you buy in bulk in the UK and import here to sell on, then someone in France goes down with some strange stomach bug from what was a recall item, who is liable ??

Presumably if you were buying direct from the manufacturer, you would get a notice, but if you were buying from the big supermarket chains or even someone like Makro you would not know....

Sorry, I don't mean to be negative, but I do think especially with foodstuffs, this would need careful consideration 

[Dog]

I'm sorry but have I missed something - there is no VAT on food sold in shops in UK. Surely there is no TVA either in France.

I have two friends that are buyers for major UK food stores - one is a freelance and works for several companies buying different commodities at certain times of year. He is a mercenary type so if you are considering buying in scale he would point you in the right direction for renumeration.

I still chuckle at how the firm he was working for got sued in the high court as he got large Mars bar copies made in Germany at 14p each - they were packaged and named differently - but it was claimed there is a trademark on the ripple on the top. The judge was apperently quite miffed he was dealing with the pattern on a chocolate bar and said the two parties should know better.

At the least you should get an account at Bookers Cash & Carry - though if you go in and flash cash at the manager and promise to buy a reasonable amount they will let you in without a card.

My wifelet says I am a wimp for not eating French beans but I bring mine back from UK at 23p a regular can.

[Will]

Sorry, Dog. TVA is charged on food in France.

[Quillan]

I was going to say the same thing Will. Dog, I don't know if you use supermarkets but at the bottom of the till ticket you will see that there is a total for items having 5.5% TVA and another for 19.5% TVA. Some 'luxury' foods are taxed at a higher rate.

[Dog]

Where can I find a list of what is charged TVA on?

Perhaps it's not on fruit, veg and lentils my staple diet....

If it is 'value added tax' it must be on processed foods surely?

[Dave&Olive]

hi ok

                There is a few " Personal Shoppers " that have sprung up  we have used one that you shop online in Tesco ,Asda  B,Q  pay online have it delivered to their  warehouse  and they charge +15% for delivery  min charge £15 . just thought i would mention it

                             Dave

             

[Quillan]

[quote user="Dog"]

Where can I find a list of what is charged TVA on?

Perhaps it's not on fruit, veg and lentils my staple diet....

If it is 'value added tax' it must be on processed foods surely?

[/quote]

I have found a supermarket receipt from yesterday and worked backwards useing the amounts of TVA charged to check against the amount I paid, it works out to the penny (or should I say cent). In amongst the shopping were potatoes, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, fish, milk and a few other things like a pre-baked apple tart. So yes it looks like there is some form of TVA on everything but in various amounts i.e. 5.5% or 19.5%. What TVA is on what I can't say as the receipt does not break it down that far. I suspect if you spend some time on the Internet you may be able to find what percentage is charged against each individual item type.

[Gardengirl]

In UK all raw meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and pulses are free from VAT, or certainly used to be. Is that also the case in France?

 

[Pads]

Mmmm this is more interesting than I thought ........

[AnOther]

Velcorin touched on it with talk of purchase invoices but what has not been properly mentioned yet is that to sell anything you would need to be officially set up in business, be that as AE or under another regime.

There is someone near us who has set up an english shop (don't know if it's official [Www]) but his beans are more expensive than in Carrefour !

[Quillan]

Reading some of these posts it seems that I have been a bit hard on the prices charged in French supermarkets for English food, its obviously the tax and transport, I have often thought that they were basically ripping us off. Mind you having said that I do know that Geant in Carcassonne (the one near the airport) sell, or did sell, Crawfords Cream Crackers but in the the normal French food part of the supermarket and they had French language wrapping. I always thought it strange that you could buy them in the French section for about half the the price of those in the English section. Another few 'English' things I have seen creep in to our local Carafour supermarket is Wheatabix and Ready Break cereals hidden amongst all the other French labeled stuff and a lot cheaper than when they were in the imported section.

[Will]

The general rule used to be that raw materials, at least where food products are concerned, were rated at 5.5% TVA and processed foods at 19.6%. I did see a reference to some luxury items carrying a higher rate still, but don't totally believe that. However, this being France, there were always exceptions to the rule, and I think it has got rather more complicated in the past few months since the TVA on restaurant meals was changed to 5.5% from 19.6%.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Will"]The general rule used to be that raw materials, at least where food products are concerned, were rated at 5.5% TVA and processed foods at 19.6%. I did see a reference to some luxury items carrying a higher rate still, but don't totally believe that. However, this being France, there were always exceptions to the rule, and I think it has got rather more complicated in the past few months since the TVA on restaurant meals was changed to 5.5% from 19.6%.
[/quote]

Did you mean changed back to 19.6%. To be honest I didn't even notice round here, any drop in rate was just 'absorbed' by the owners.

[Will]

TVA on meals in restaurants changed from 19.6% to 5.5% on 1 July 2009. Some places changed their pricing, but most seemed to stay the same. I'm sure that if this had happened in UK there would have been countless 'rip off Britain' squeals here, but the French change went largely un-noticed. I well remember being in a restaurant on 1 July last year (it happens to be my birthday) where some menu items had been reduced in celebration of the new TVA rate - they made quite a thing about it.

I'm not aware that it has changed back to the higher rate.

[Cat]

Official TVA import rates

In French

Google English

[Chancer]

It has not changed back.

Pressure continues to be brought to bear on the majority of eateries that have not passed on the part of the reduction they were required to, sanctions are threatened but not much has changed although many customers quite rightly have voted with their feet.

I should add that TVA was always 5.5% on take away food.

[Doodle]

[quote user="Will"]You might also like to look at www.epiceriebarenton.com. A lot of this is high-quality British-style food that is made in France, from French raw materials, and supplied to French shops; the rest is imported.

[/quote]

We live in an area where our local Intermarche and Shopi stock Barenton's goodies can recommend them as sometimes you just have to have a bacon sarnie.

Chris