Food Prices to Go Up Yet Again

As the holiday season’s price freeze on price hikes ends, higher grocery prices are anticipated to impact stores throughout Canada.
In the fall of last year, both Metro Inc. and Loblaw Cos. Ltd. announced they would hold the majority of their private-label and national brand product pricing stable until February 5.

As customer outcry over rising supermarket costs and scrutiny of grocers’ record profits mount, price freezes are being lifted.

The argument put up by supermarket chains, however, is that their food margins have stayed constant and that they are merely passing along higher supplier pricing.

According to Catherine Thomas, a spokesman for Loblaw, “food inflation has continued and the cost to fill our shelves has increased month after month.”

The business, which has a number of banners including Zehrs, Provigo, and No Frills, will “continue to maintain most of those costs flat,” and switching to No Name will still result in thousands of dollars in savings for the typical family this year, she added.

The CEO of Metro recently revealed that in 2022, the Montreal-based supermarket chain experienced more than 27,000 price increases from suppliers, with dry goods alone seeing average price rises of more than 10%—triple the annual rate.

In a conference call with analysts, Metro CEO Eric La Fleche remarked, “We can’t foresee future inflation as many vendor requests for price hikes continue to come in, and the core problems outside of our control are still present.”

However, at least one supermarket abroad has chosen to prolong a pricing moratorium.

Coles, a major supermarket chain in Australia, has prolonged its so-called “dropped and locked” price freeze on a few items that was set to expire on January 31.

Professor of food economy at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Michael von Massow, said, “They said it’s to help Australians get through this food price rise.”

The No Name pricing freeze was similar to what they chose, but they may have taken it a step farther and prolonged it.

Given the ongoing inflation, it is uncertain how much food prices in Canada would increase in the next months.

According to Massow, factors like the conflict in Ukraine, the flooding in California, and the value of the Canadian dollar might all be at play.

Although there are numerous unpredictable aspects, he expressed some optimism.

Prabhnoor Kaur