On Food Prices, It’s Grocers Versus Suppliers

Last week, the Wall Street Journal wrote about how supermarkets were putting pressure on food manufacturers to lower prices or offer special deals for consumers. The Oct. 30 story (“Grocers Find Food Prices Hard to Swallow”) told about how grocery chains are “balking at food makers’ efforts to raise prices further,” and “using food companies’ earnings reports as leverage to reject price increases.”

Welcome to the club, ladies and gentlemen.

From the story: Kraft Foods Inc. and Kellogg Co. both reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings last week — thanks, in part, to price hikes. Kraft’s revenue rose 19% from the year-earlier period, and Kellogg’s sales climbed 9.5%.

Corn prices? Down about 50 percent from this summer. And yet, we’re still blamed.