As the price at the pump in B.C. and across Canada soars, retailers are warning shoppers they could soon see the same for the price of everyday items at the grocery store.
Experts say most cost increases will be due to fuel surcharges on some mainstay perishable items like fruits and vegetables.
Members of B.C.’s trucking industry say they are already seeing those impacts on items like lettuce shipped to Metro Vancouver from south of the border.
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Gary Sands, a Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Advocacy with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, says smaller businesses with less buying power than the big chains will see the highest pressure on their bottom lines.
“We’re starting to see notifications from suppliers that their prices are going to be impacted,” said Sands.
“A lot of those seem to be taking place, the increases in mid to late April, but we know there’s going to be more coming.”
He says small grocery stores already have high operating costs, and passing on costs to the consumer can’t be avoided.
“They’re on a margin of about 2 per cent. Seventy per cent to 80 per cent of the costs are just associated with getting the product in the store,” Sands said.
“That doesn’t even get into things like your overhead costs, labour costs, et cetera.”
Sands says he expects prices to rise even higher in April if nothing changes to lower the cost of fuel.
“If you’re going to be hit with fuel surcharges or double-digit increases in the cost of your product coming into the store, how do you mitigate that? How do you minimize that? There is no way you can, and otherwise you’re going to be an out-of-business independent grocer. That’s just part of the challenge.”