While many are seeing costs rise, one Edmonton baker says they’re leveling out, and will be cutting the prices of goods as a result. “It’s year-end, I’m stacking up last year’s invoices to this one, the actual cost of ingredients … haven’t gone up much, but the amount that I’m charging customers is a ton in comparison to that,” said Vinny Rozhdestvensky of Better Baker YEG. “That’s not fair.” Rozhdestvensky said he saw a news story about the price of groceries going up, and then businesses began raising their prices as a result. He said he wanted to keep up, but now that sentiment has changed. “I think that in the future, I’m going to be paying closer attention to my actual costs and less to what everybody else out there is saying, and I’m just going to be making my own decisions, as opposed to based on what all the restaurants around me are doing,” said Rozhdestvensky. Prices of pastries available at Better Baker YEG have dropped about $1.75 with most items at the $5 mark. John Pracejus, director of the school of retailing at the University of Alberta, said food inflation is still somewhere between three and four per cent over the last year, which is considerably higher than the two per cent most developed countries aim for. However, Statistics Canada shows typical baking ingredients like butter, eggs, flour and sugar have seen a dip in price since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Pracejus said items like beef and coffee continue to drive food inflation up, but that producers who find ways to lower their own prices is an encouraging sign. “That does seem to hint at the possibility of a turnaround, at least in some limited areas, so that’s really great for consumers,” said Pracejus.
