Understanding the Complex Factors Behind Barbados' Rising Food Prices according to Barbados Chamber of Commerce President

The addition of duty, VAT, transportation costs and local transportation were all elements that dictated the price before it was merchandised on a supermarket shelf. This, Clarke said, was what needed attention.

“It has to be everybody along the way from the shippers, shipping, the actual shipping lines themselves, source market, Government when it reaches here and then certainly, the retailers.

“We are price-takers, unfortunately, for a lot of things. If the cost of some commodity goes up 100 per cent in another market, we really feel it here, but the shipping is one of them that really adds a lot,” he added.

At Massy Supermarket in Warrens, St Michael, Sunday, George Fortune, who was with his wife, said that in recent years their grocery bills increased by roughly 20 per cent.

“I shop for groceries about three or four times a week. Looking at it monthly I’d say my grocery bill is roughly about $1 200. It used to be less but I would say for a long time the grocery bills have been high.”

Another shopper, Rawle Clarke, said his grocery bill had increased in recent times but not to a large extent.

“I would say they are reasonable, no big jumps in prices. You might find that some things here are cheaper than Popular and at Popular it’s vice versa,” he said.

Director of Carlton AOne Supermarkets Tomilson Bynoe said he was not privy to the comments made by Symmonds, but offered some insight to various factors affecting retailer prices.

“Retailers as a norm are not out there trying to raise pricing at this time. It doesn’t benefit us. Purchasing power is still purchasing power. If my price is too high, then how can my customer base afford to buy something? Each retailer has their own individual economic micro-anomalies in terms of cost of electricity, staffing costs, cost of packaging and income cost theory,” he explained.

“I think we again have to understand we are not a commander of prices here. We don’t determine price points. We import everything and therefore most of the prices that you see on the shelves carry imported inflation in them; that’s the reality of the world. You can see that pricing has moved. The global pricing net for food continues to rise,” he added.

Bynoe, who is also an executive member of BCCI, said a decline in global pricing net would be the thing to bring an ease in the high food prices stressing consumers.

“The discussion is not one that we can have in isolation because everybody’s economies are different in each of our individual retail spaces. If Retailer X’s corned beef is more expensive than Retailer Y’s corned beef, you can’t assume that one person is trying to price gouge.

“There may be factors, including the fact that they can only buy, because of their demand, two cases a week; whereas another retailer can buy 20 cases a week and negotiate better pricing. So you see a difference in pricing, assume that this person is doing something untoward to the customer, and it’s not that,” Bynoe added.