Grocery prices could climb, even as food service comes back online

A surprising thing happened during the COVID-19 lockdown: grocery stores in Canada didn’t jack prices in comparison to their American counterparts. What’s more, the sales of certain items, such as beef, held very strong — much stronger than many anticipated. That demand helped offset the loss of sit-down dining demand. But as Kevin Grier, of Kevin Grier Market Analysis and Consulting, explains in the interview below, increasing commodity costs could push grocery inflation higher in the year ahead. Grier says that initial cost increases in American grocery stores were largely driven by opportunity. Panic buying and closed restaurants pushed more sales to grocers, and they took advantage. Here in Canada, he says, our food inflation rate actually went down, despite some…