The Tribune

• Roberts: Stocking up delaying impact

• But 8-10% rise ‘a fact, not a prediction’

• Switching supply sources aiding battle

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value’s president yesterday pledged to hold-off food price increases as long as possible, but reiterated that eight to ten percent rises by Christmas “is not a prediction but a fact”.

Rupert Roberts, explaining that the situation is beyond the control of Bahamian merchants, told Tribune Business that the 13-store chain had stocked up sufficiently on inventories “to ward off the price increases for a while” even though they are constantly feeding into the supply chain.

Citing corn beef as an example, he added that while prices had increased by 15 percent - something that will be felt in the supermarket chain’s next shipments - the impact will not touch consumers until early 2022 because it has already imported thousands of cans at a lower price.

Similarly, Mr Roberts said Super Value was saving Bahamian consumers some 25 percent on chicken and turkey by switching its purchasing to Brazil rather than the US, where prices have soared. He promised to “fight every day to keep food on the table at the best possible price” notwithstanding the cost pressures impacting the industry globally.

“The price increases are there, but we haven’t had to implement them yet because we saw it coming and have the resources and warehouse space to do it,” the Super Value chief told this newspaper. “We stocked up to ward off the price increases for a while.

“We’re saving the public 25 percent on chickens and turkey by switching to Brazil. We’ve got it 25 percent less than sourcing through the US. Our direct imports are not going up yet; our direct buying is not going up, but the local vendors [wholesalers] are going up and not telling us in advance how much. They do not buy in advance or as much.”

Asserting that there is “nothing within our control”, Mr Roberts said fuel price increases locally and abroad were further impacting already-soaring road haulage and shipping costs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic’s fall-out.

He added that transportation and food processing plants were suffering from employee shortages and having to entice workers via higher pay, with persons preferring to remain home and take the US government’s COVID assistance payments.

These increased costs were being passed down the supply chain, which remains impacted by pandemic-induced backlogs at multiple levels. Rising food demand globally, as more economies and businesses open, has also helped to push food prices higher.

“The prediction is by Christmas or the first of the year [2022] we are going to have that eight to ten percent increase,” Mr Roberts said. “It’s nothing to do with us; we’re reporting what’s reported to us. It’s not a prediction; it’s a fact coming down the pike. 

“We fight every day, which is our job, to keep the cost of living down. We know what our store managers face when they have to put price increases into effect. We have to feed the public, feed the nation and have got to keep food on the table at the best possible price.

“The public are very sensitive; they recognise it. They make their observations when it goes up to keep us in line, and Price Control always asks us to keep the public informed when prices go up so that they don’t go running to price control.”

Mr Roberts said Super Value would have to get permission to increase the price on corn beef and other price-controlled items when the time came, and added: “Twenty percent of items represent 80 per cent of sales.”

Philip Beneby, head of the Retail Grocers Association, told Tribune Business earlier this year that wholesalers and retailers often have little choice but to pass on price increases 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.”