The head of Maple Leaf Foods says the company is dealing with higher fuel and poultry prices while budget-conscious consumers constrain the company’s ability to raise prices.
“We’ve seen more inflation enter the business than we have expected. That’s accelerating,” CEO Curtis Frank told analysts on a third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Fuel surcharges have gone up 17 percent since the second quarter, which Frank called a “pretty material change.”
Poultry farmers, meanwhile, have raised prices for live birds by about three percent in the fourth quarter, “with very short advance notice,” he added.
“Those are really the two components—feed and fuel,” he said. “Inflation and agricultural commodities that are a direct implication of what we’ve seen from a conflict situation in the world.”…