Norbert Cunningham: Food price gouging continues

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Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, told BNI last week that the latest Statistics Canada numbers “paint a stark picture of household disposable income being consumed by food retail across the provinces.”

The national average is 9.3 per cent, also too high.

It is good news that, overall, New Brunswickers’ incomes have risen too, lessening the food pinch, but not good news the income increases haven’t cancelled out food inflation. The pinch is worsening. If you had no raise, it has to be rough.

Brace for more: Canada’s Food Price Report is predicting grocery inflation to be between 2.5 and 4.5 per cent this year for a family of two adults and two children, for an annual bill of $16,297.20. It also warned some food, including bakery, meat and vegetables, could increase as much as seven per cent more.

Despite claims of innocence, I see little evidence traditional groceries have stopped their gouging, rather than fixing fundamental flaws in their outdated models. It’s still driving much food inflation.

Being competitive with wholesale and discount retailers isn’t convincing when they jack prices up, then mark them down if you buy three. True discount stores mark down for bulk purchases without raising prices first. I’ve watched clerks changing tags in that way, leaving the low price for three per unit higher than the original price for one. I asked; “head office sets the prices” was the reply.

Chain denials are unconvincing when they report record or near record profits. Nor do a few actual good buys make up for hundreds that are not.

Crowing that food inflation is only 1.9 per cent higher is an admission of failure. Deflation could be possible with better managers. A few exist.

Norbert Cunningham is a Brunswick News columnist and a retired editorial page editor of the Times & Transcript