By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value’s president yesterday warned that consumers will have “a big pill” to swallow by Christmas, as he predicted that grocery and meat prices will increase by eight percent and 10-12 percent respectively.

Rupert Roberts told Tribune Business that a combination of increased demand, as the Bahamian and global economies continue to reflate following COVID-19, combined with soaring freight and trucking costs and other supply chain bottlenecks, were all feeding into increased food prices.

“It looks like by Christmas it’s going to be at least 8 percent, and possibly a 10 percent, increase,” he disclosed.

“It’s feeding in every day, and by the time we’re getting on to Christmas we’re going to have the full effect. Some grocery articles will be up in the vicinity of 8 percent, and meat and poultry probably by 10-12 percent. That’s a big pill....

“Freight and trucking costs are really playing hell with all of it. By October/November we’ll see things increasing up to 8-10 percent, which is beyond this country’s control. Just buy as you need and don’t over stock the pantry.”

Mr Roberts instructed Super Value’s buyers to “lock in all you can, even at higher prices, if you suspect they’re going to go higher. I thought Christmas would catch us by 5-8 percent higher, but it now looks more like 10-12 percent higher as the country opens up and the US gets back to normal”.

The Super Value chief, acknowledging that “prices continue to jump” as inflation continues to pick-up in many countries with the post-COVID reflation, took this newspaper on a tour of the supermarket chain’s buyers and suppliers to determine the extent of food costs increases in recent weeks.

While today’s visit from a US Meat Export Federation official is likely to shed more light on that market, pork prices - which also include chops, bacon, ham and ribs - were said to have risen by 10 percent in recent months and weeks. Steaks had increased by $1 percent, and beef prices have also “jumped 12 percent higher”.

Much of the increase has been attributed to the re-opening of the Bahamian, and global, hospitality and tourism industries. Hotels and restaurants are ramping up supplies as guest numbers increase, while the return of the cruise ship industry and its Nassau home porting has also caused a local demand rise.

Mr Roberts’ team reported that poultry prices have soared by as much as 18 percent, and the Super Value chief said previous tactics of switching to a different market when prices rose in another will not be successful this time as all agriculture-producing countries - the US, Canada, Brazil and Denmark - were experiencing cost surges at the same time.

Grits were said to have increased in price by 20 percent, while rising oil prices meant commodities such as margarine and cooking oils had jumped in cost by 15 percent and 8 percent, respectively. However, Mr Roberts said products such as milk will not see a significant increase as Super Value had managed to already lock-in long-term supplies at a fixed price.

“All of the [Christmas] hams and turkeys are locked at June’s price,” he added. “We’re locked and covered in hams and turkeys..... Half the stuff we have in stock, we have three months’ supply of, and only after that will we be faced with price increases. Corn beef is up by $5 a case, but I have 17,000 cases so I don’t have to worry about that for a couple of months.

“I’m not panicking. We have large stocks and shipments in at current prices. It’s going to be a little while before we have to pass the higher prices on to the public before Christmas. We have to put food on the table at the best possible price, and we work every day to do that. We’re good at it.

“Some things like chicken and poultry are already gone. Those prices have gone up in our advertising by ten cents a pound on chicken and poultry.” While no increase in rice prices has been “quoted”, Super Value expects that this staple will also rise. However, besides soaring trucking and freight costs, fruit and vegetable prices are forecast to largely escape at least for most of summer.

Philip Beneby, head of the Retail Grocers Association, told Tribune Business he “hadn’t heard anything” in relation to possible food price increases but acknowledged that the present climate was “conducive” to further cost pressures being imposed on Bahamian consumers.

Pointing out that wholesalers and retailers often had little choice but to pass such increases on, given that The Bahamas imports virtually all it consumes, he added: “If there’s going to be price increases in food and other items, I’m not surprised. The environment we’re in now is conducive for price increases.

“It’s not a good thing, and it’s not something we’d like to see but we have no control over it. We are a non-producing country. We have no control over price increases.” Mr Beneby said COVID-19 had caused supply chain bottlenecks as a result of some food processing plants having temporarily closed down due to health-related restrictions and positive cases.

“The cost is going to be passed on. What can we do?” he added. “That’s the way it is. If there are price increases coming I won’t be surprised. We’ll continue to pay attention in our purchasing and watch the prices. Whatever we can absorb we will, and whatever we cannot absorb we have to pass on. That’s just the way we do business; the nature of the business that we’re in.

“Over the next few months, the next half of the year, we’ll see what happens and do the best we can. Whatever we have to do to tighten our belts we have to do, and run the business as efficiently as we can and pass on as little as we can to the consumer. What we can’t absorb or digest ourselves, or we cannot keep, it has to be passed on.”