they can now be used in Hema stores

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the report above. Click on the video to watch it in full.

In decoration stores, there is a little novelty at the checkout. Customers can now pay in meal vouchers. To ensure this, a journalist from France Télévisions successfully tried the experiment with a packet of candy. However, in the store, on the food side, there are only sweets and biscuits. The rest is homeware and stationery. So, why is the brand authorized to accept meal vouchers? When contacted, management did not wish to answer our questions.

If a client finds this normal: “It’s very good because Hema is a small brand that offers things at low prices, so it can help a lot of people, I think.” Others, however, are more critical. “Buying chips or marshmallows from Hema is not going to make us a meal”says a passerby.

Unacceptable for restaurateurs. The main union in the sector fears that more and more customers will turn away from traditional restaurants. “That means that other stores will make the same request. And will we have traceability that the meal voucher is used only for the chocolate bar or the chips or the drink? Maybe not. Maybe it will be for a souvenir”reacts Franck Chaumès, national president of catering at the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries. Faced with the controversy, the National Commission for Meal Vouchers, which awards approvals, assures that it will study the file again.