While the margin on breadbasket items remains unchanged, the price of meats, soft drinks, plastic products and other household items has increased, according to some merchants who spoke with The Bahama Journal this week.
Patrick Treco, C.E.O of Continental Foods, who is also the proprietor of Southland Farms and Blue Hill and Fox Hill Meat marts, said price increases are due to soaring freight expenses and other extenuating factors.
A few months ago, shipping companies initiated increased fees, blaming a range of factors, including higher oil prices and other business-oriented costs.
“Because of world demands and fuel costs as well as freight increases, and the freight increased because of fuel costs, anything to do with plastic products has increased due to the fact that they use fuel to produce this stuff and you know a lot of the plastics are by-products of oil and therefore the prices have increased tremendously,” Mr. Treco said.
“The regular ten-inch plastic cups have increased by 30 cents per sleeve for 100 count.”
He explained that the increases were not spontaneous.
“In April we brought in products and the cost increased from about 32 cents on a five inch plastic cup,” Mr. Treco said. “We have gotten notices every month for the last four months of the prices on plastic cups increasing by 10 to 15 percent from the suppliers in the states.”
Mr. Treco also explained that over the course of eight to 10 months he has seen the cost of meats climb in the international market.
“We used to buy portioned wings at 25 to 30 cents a pound. Now the same item is causing us close to 60 cents a pound. It is not due to fuel of freight costs; it is just supply and demand. It is a matter of what is available. They are sending everything to China right now and you just can’t find the product,” Mr. Treco said.
A good piece of steak that used to cost $6 a pound now costs almost $10 per pound, according to Mr. Treco.
He added that two months ago turkey wings were sold at 59 cents per pound, but now Super Value, City Market and other grocery stores have has upped the price to 99 cents or more per pound.
“I am sorry for the consumer,” he said. “I don’t know what they are going to do because salaries are not going up. It has to be a breaking point because I don’t know what the people are going to do. I don’t know what we are going to do. We could only buy and sell, but the consumer has that choice to either buy it or leave it.”
William Chan, the proprietor of the East Street South Supermarket, and Franklin Butler of Milo Butler and Sons both acknowledged that their customers have already started to complain about the rising price of food store items.
“Customers have been noticing the price increase, but I guess they just have accepted it because there is not much of a choice since we had to tie the overhead prices in,” Mr. Chan said.
“Pretty much everything has slight increases. For example, paper towels used to retail for 99 cents, now it is like $1.09. Sodas have increased by 25 cents a case,” he said. “But as a retailer we cannot raise our prices as much as we get hit with increases so our profit margin is becoming smaller and smaller,” Mr. Chan said.”
Mr. Butler, meanwhile, explained why many small merchants choose not to increase the cost of most items as frequently as they should.
“Distributors will certainly sell off what they might have had in inventory and try to hold the line as much as is possible because most distributors have to compete on price,” he said.
Those rising prices do not affect the cost of breadbasket items like, essential canned foods.
Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller has told The Bahama Journal that the government is not inclined to revise the margins on breadbasket items anytime soon.
By: Royanne Forbes, The Bahama Journal
