19 February 2024 , 19:00
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Metro Inc. CEO Eric La Fleche this week painfully informed consumers of an incoming price hike that will likely hit as soon as next week after an industry-wide hiatus of supplier price increases came to an end.
"We are negotiating as best we can and delaying as much as we can some of the increases requested by our suppliers," La Fleche told a virtual news conference. "Unfortunately, there will be some prices starting to go up." La Fleche said the price of orange juice is poised to increase due to the problems with orange crops.
"That one's going to be substantial," he said. "We're clearly going to be selling a lot less orange juice." There may be a silver lining as the CEO said the amount of supplier requests for price hikes is down considerably compared to the highs of the last two years.
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Orange Juice products will undoubtedly be priced higher as the orange crop problem persists (Bloomberg via Getty Images)"So that's good news," he said. "And the size of the demands is coming back to more normal levels." The grocery and drugstore giant reported its first-quarter profits totaled to $228.5 million(£181,517,041), with an 6.5 per cent increase in sales. Metro claimed its earnings were about 99 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended December 23 compared with $231.1 million(£183,514,254.00) in total profits or about 97 cents per diluted share a year before when the company seemed to be more popular on the stock market.
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Metro executives insisted that several factors were at play here. “It’s just a myriad of factors that are driving up crops,” Gary Sands, the senior vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers warned. Sands mentioned problems like crop issues and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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A shopper named Jenay said their bill can be anywhere between $50(£39.73) and $200(£158.90) (Getty Images)Metro's attempts to impede price hikes hasn't impressed customers who say they are still annoyed at the news. “I’m really appalled because there is no need for these prices to be high,” a shopper who identified herself as Gabriella told CTV. Others have explained how the increases have affected their lives.
A shopper named Jenay said their bill can be anywhere between $50(£39.73) and $200(£158.90). The New Jersey native lives in a state where grocery prices have reached an all-time high, according to a research report by ConsumerAffairs
Metro saw $4.97 billion(£3,948,416,500) in profits, which is up from $4.67 billion in the same quarter a year prior that ended on December 17, 2022. Food sales rose about 6.1 per cent, which were galvanised in part by the timing of the quarter's conclusion relative to Christmas. The week of Christmas saw a 3.4 per cent rise of same-store sales for food. Additionally, consumers were buying more pharmacy products by 3.9 per cent