Grocery prices will also increase this year, supermarkets expect

The prices of some A-brands in supermarkets will also increase this year, according to the CEOs of PLUS and Jumbo. Several manufacturers are asking for higher purchase prices, which means that products such as coffee from A-brands will increase more in price than those of private labels.

This happened (very clearly” last year and will continue to happen this year, PLUS CEO Aart van Haren said on Thursday evening during a round table conference in Oegstgees (Zuid-Holland) on purchasing issues. “After Covid, thighs went very fast due to hyperinflation. If the purchase price of a private label has to increase by 5 percent due to higher wages or energy, they are transparent about it. A producer of an A-brand of the same product calmly tells us that the product has to increase in price by 9 percent,” he gave as an example.

He stated that, in practice, there are manufacturers who want 20 percent higher purchase prices due to expensive raw materials for milk, for example. He did not say which A-brands do this and for what products. “I think it’s happening across the entire range, but it will be more extreme in one category than the other.”

Departing Jumbo CEO Ton van Veen stated that his chain is currently struggling with supply problems of products from Red Bull and JDE Peet’s, the parent company of Douwe Egberts, among others. Because A-brands are often more expensive than private labels, the prices that supermarkets and ultimately consumers pay are rising much faster, Van Veen added.

Joris Beckers, co-founder of Picnic, stated that these types of manufacturers are an “accelerator of inflation.”