SNACK ATTACK: Frito-Lay products set for 10-11% price hike

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It’s going to cost you more to chow down on your favourite Cheetos, Doritos, Lays, Ruffles and Sunchips — to name a few.

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Gary Sands, senior vice-president, public policy and advocacy, for the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, which represents over 6,900 independent grocery retailers, says one of the country’s biggest food manufacturers Frito-Lay (owned by PepsiCo Foods Canada) has given some of his members notification of a hike in prices between 10-11% starting this week.

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“We’re not blaming Frito-Lay for increasing prices,” said Sands. “We know they must have very valid reasons for doing so. What we’re trying to get across is just letting people know that independent grocers, they’re on a profit margin of about 2% (your profit after you pay all your costs and bills), so if an independent grocer gets handed an invoice from any company where the price goes up 10 or 11%, there’s no business model that exists that you can’t help but you have to pass that onto the consumer.”

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Sands says it’s the retailers who bear the brunt of criticism when food costs go up like they have been.

“There is a perception, I think, that retailers are just tacking on price increases and that’s not the case,” he says. “Don’t blame the retailer.”

Sands says its a combination of factors that has led to this increase as with all food price hikes.

“It’s like a perfect storm, it’s like the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse decided to take jobs up in the food industry,” he said. “We’ve had COVID ripping through the supply chain. We’ve had catastrophic flooding in B.C. (which increased transportation and fuel costs). We had the war in Ukraine that has a huge impact just looking at sunflower oil. We’ve seen interest rates going up. Most of our water based vegetables and fruits, like celery and lettuce and tomatoes, most of those things come from California (which) got ravaged by two hits. A drought and a virus (that attacked those crops out of the Salinas Valley). So that had a huge impact on the price of imports. All of these things have an effect. There is no bogey man here.”

Last year, Frito-Lay stopped shipping its snack foods to Canada’s largest grocery retailer Loblaws after a dispute erupted over price increases.