Wood pellets are not spared from rising prices. Some Gers brands are struggling to get supplies while customers are looking at all costs to stock up on the approach of winter.
In recent years, many households have decided to install pellet stoves to heat their homes. Energy premium subsidies have boosted sales, up 41% in 2020 and 2021. But the rise in energy prices that has been raging for several months has not spared pellets, these wood pellets that allow fuel stove and wood boiler.
Installed in the Southwest for fifteen years, Koen Van De Maele has realized this. This Flemish trader set up Distri 32 in Saint-Clar a year ago, from where he is the distributor of the Novalia brand in France. “Currently, pellets are madness. We’ve never experienced that!”
While the war in Ukraine is often cited as the cause of soaring energy prices, it is not the only factor for pellets. “We started the season without stock because the winter went well, explains Koen Van De Maele. Pellet is wood, energy, packaging and transport, four things that increased enormously. The raw material is wood waste with sawdust and chips, it has doubled. And then there is a panic effect: everyone buys, and if the winter is hard, it there is a risk of shortage because there are no more imports from Belarus and Ukraine.”
“We have no visibility”
“There is panic, admits Koen Van De Maele. The distribution buys expensive and does not take a margin, for them it is a loss leader. We are not currently discussing the price, only the volumes.” For some brands, the situation is critical, such as Weldom in Fleurance, which has still not been delivered. “We have no visibility on the volume, the date and the prices, the management is sorry. We have a lot of demand at the moment. If this delivery does not arrive, it will be a shortage for the store.”
If the prices of pellets have doubled compared to last year, that does not call into question the savings made by the dwellings which have been equipped. “The price of pellets has doubled, but other energies have done much better, argues Eric Vial, the manager of Propellet France, in a LinkedIn post. We can understand the dismay of the household who switched to pellets to lower their energy budget. and who ends up with the same bill as before. Yet he made the right decision, otherwise his bill would have been much higher.”
Beware of scams
When a product sees its prices rise sharply, scammers are never far away to try to take advantage of it. Pellets are no exception, with tempting offers popping up online. “There is everything on the market. There are bad products which are not expensive, but which damage and clog the installations, remarks Koen Van De Maele. We save 50 cents on a bag, but we will have costs for repair the stove. The important thing is to maintain your installation to consume less and to buy a good product.” Beyond scammers trying to sell poor quality products, some supermarkets try to lure customers by promising discounts on wood pellets. Here too, caution: no price is announced, and the brands sometimes do not have the stocks to honor the promised discount.