Milk prices should be paused amid pressure to keep food costs down: independent grocers – National | 24CA News
The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers is looking on the Crown company that manages dairy provide and pricing to hit pause on any additional will increase to milk costs amid political stress to maintain meals costs down.
The Canadian Dairy Commission evaluations the worth dairy farmers are paid for his or her milk each fall and broadcasts whether or not that worth will improve or lower the next February.
The fee suggested a number of business teams in a memo Friday that the worth of milk on the farmgate degree may go up 1.77 per cent in February primarily based on its calculations and its survey on the price of manufacturing.
However, if a number of of those stakeholders invokes an “exceptional circumstance mechanism,” the worth adjustment is not going to be set by the formulation however as a substitute be set by means of consultations, the CDC mentioned.
The CFIG invoked that mechanism in a letter to the fee Friday. The federation’s senior vice-president Gary Sands wrote that the grocery business is in an distinctive scenario this 12 months.
The meals business is at the moment underneath stress to maintain costs steady, with Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne calling on the most important grocers to give you plans to stabilize costs.
Last Thursday, Champagne introduced the most important grocers have promised to supply reductions, worth freezes and worth matching.
Sands argued that any improve in milk costs at the start of the provision chain would go towards the federal government’s goal to stabilize meals costs.
In the letter, he urged the CDC to droop any deliberate worth will increase and to “hold further consultations within the context of the Government of Canada’s current desire to achieve price stability.”
It’s significantly troublesome for small and impartial meals retailers to deal with these will increase with out passing them alongside to customers, Sands mentioned in an interview.
“Here we are, in a time frame where the public has been told by the government that we’re trying to achieve price stability,” he mentioned.
“If we’re going to have price stability, it has to be for all Canadians. Not some Canadians, depending on where you shop.”
Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay have been copied on the letter.
The Retail Council of Canada, whose members embrace the massive grocers and which was one of many stakeholders that obtained the memo, declined to remark. Restaurants Canada, which additionally obtained the memo, declined to remark.
This is the second time such a memo has been despatched to stakeholders, in addition to to the media and the general public, as a part of the fee’s current efforts to be extra clear, mentioned Philippe Charlebois, a spokesman for the dairy fee.
He mentioned the stakeholders have till Friday to decide on whether or not to invoke the distinctive circumstances mechanism, including the fee can’t affirm which, if any, have chosen to take action already.
Next week, the fee has consultations deliberate with stakeholders, mentioned Charlebois. If the mechanism is invoked, the February worth adjustment will likely be decided by means of these consultations as a substitute of by means of the fee’s formulation.
The CDC has acknowledged receipt of the letter, mentioned Sands. He mentioned he provides the group credit score for heeding current requires extra transparency into the way it determines farmgate costs. This is the primary time that the CFIG has been aware of the method main as much as the annual dairy worth adjustment, he mentioned.
Last 12 months, the fee was underneath scrutiny amid breakneck inflation and rising prices for farmers because it permitted a uncommon second improve to the farmgate worth of milk.
Industry observers on the time raised issues over a scarcity of transparency in how pricing choices are made by the fee.
Over the previous 12 months, the fee has met with the CFIG to debate what goes into their pricing choices, Sands mentioned: “They’re continuing to improve.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
