Restaurant owners are not immune to the rise in the consumer price index, a change that might affect menu prices in the coming weeks.
Meat is one of the products mainly impacted with an average increase of 9.6% between 2019 and 2021. The same is true for fish and seafood, which jumped 4.5% over the same period.
“Inflation on industrial food products in Canada, which concerns selling prices at the factory gate, also experienced an extreme jump between February 2021 and February 2022,” noted the Association Restauration Québec.
Even more blatantly, the price of flour and grains increased by 28.9%.
“It should come as no surprise that restaurant owners have no choice but to increase the price of items on their menu if they want to survive,” the association said.
Nearly half (48.8%) of restaurateurs have also indicated that they intend to increase their prices between 6 and 10% in 2022.
“Between the output of the factory and the plate of the consumer, there are the wholesalers who also taste these increases. Indeed, as food products sell for more at their place of manufacture, wholesalers have no other choice than to naturally follow the movement to preserve their profits, ”he added.
Same story for imported products, which saw their prices increase by 11.5% between 2019 and 2021.