加拿大最大连锁超市的所有者表示，他担心飙升的能源价格可能重燃食品通胀。
The owner of Canada’s largest grocery chain said he’s concerned surging energy prices are threatening to reignite food inflation.
加拿大零售商 Loblaw Cos. 的控股股东兼董事长 Galen Weston 表示，中东战争导致全球石油供应中断，正在推高食品生产商的投入成本，从柴油到化肥，这些成本可能会反映在货架价格上。
Galen Weston, the controlling shareholder and chairman of retailer Loblaw Cos., said disruptions to global oil supplies due to war in the Middle East are raising costs for food producers’ inputs, from diesel to fertilizer, which could be reflected on store shelves.
“我们对此感到担忧，”他在多伦多的一次活动上表示。“不是担心会回到 2021 年那种 11% 的水平，而是担心外部的所有这些力量将继续给价值链施加压力。”据该国统计局近期数据显示，加拿大食品杂货价格在六年内上涨了 33%。
“We’re worried about it,” he said at an event in Toronto. “Not worried that it’s going to go back to 11% like it was in 2021, but worried that all these forces out there are going to continue to put pressure on that value chain.”Grocery prices have jumped by 33% in six years in Canada, according to recent data from the country’s statistics agency.
加拿大央行本周自 2023 年以来首次加息，以应对因燃油价格上涨而已渗透进经济的通胀。食品价格压力将给消费者增加一个新的痛点。
The Bank of Canada raised interest rates for the first time since 2023 this week to combat inflation already creeping into the economy from higher fuel prices. Pressure on food would add one more pain point for consumers.
Weston 的 228 亿美元净资产大多来自其加拿大杂货店，这对他来说也是个问题。在演讲中，Weston 回忆称，在新冠疫情供应冲击导致食品通胀失控时，他曾被贴上“加拿大最令人讨厌的人”的标签，并被传唤到议会委员会作出解释。
Owing most of his $22.8 billion net worth to his Canadian grocery stores, that’s a problem for Weston too. In his speech, Weston recalled that he was labeled “the most hated person in Canada” when food inflation ran out of control during the Covid-19 supply shock, and he was called before a parliamentary committee to answer for it.
他遭到政客们的严厉盘问，并在喜剧节目中被讽刺。一个名为“Loblaws Is Out of Control”（Loblaw 失控了）的 Reddit 群组，供购物者发泄对食品价格的不满并发布店内照片，用户增长至数万名。
He was grilled by politicians and lampooned on comedy shows. A Reddit group called “Loblaws Is Out of Control,” where shoppers vent about food prices and post pictures taken in stores, grew to tens of thousands of users.
韦斯顿表示，这些诋毁是基于错误的分析、政治因素以及“谎言”。他说，杂货店几乎无力影响食品价格，因为价格大多在供应链更早的环节就已锁定，而他现在看到的压力正来自那些环节。“无论是霍尔木兹海峡的中断，还是最近一直处于峰值的化肥成本，甚至是厄尔尼诺现象造成的干扰，”他说，“这些都是我们正在密切关注的事情。”韦斯顿表示，在每25美元的杂货消费中，只有1美元是商店的利润，这让像他这样的公司几乎没有降价空间。
Weston said that vilification was based on mistaken analysis, politics and “lies.”Grocery stores have little ability to impact food prices because they’re mostly locked in during earlier steps in the supply chain — and that’s where he’s seeing pressure now, he said. “Whether it’s disruption in the Strait of Hormuz or whether it’s the cost of fertilizer, which has been peaking recently, even the disruption from El Niño,” he said. “That’s something we’re watching very carefully.”Weston said out of every $25 spent on groceries, only $1 is profit for the store, which gives companies like his very little room to lower prices.
几年前，韦斯顿曾被传唤到议会委员会作证，该委员会最终发布了一份报告，将疫情后食品通胀的飙升归咎于供应链压力以及食品行业的企业集中。报告还建议政府采取措施促进杂货零售商之间的竞争。
The parliamentary committee Weston was called before a few years ago eventually released a report that blamed the post-pandemic surge in food inflation on pressure in the supply chain as well as corporate concentration in the food sector. It went on to recommend the government take steps to boost competition among grocery retailers.
在周五的演讲中，韦斯顿主张加拿大杂货行业已经具有竞争力，美国零售商沃尔玛公司和好市多批发公司在加拿大市场份额中位居前列。
In his Friday speech, Weston argued the Canadian grocery industry is already competitive, with American stores Walmart Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. two of the largest players by market share in Canada.
韦斯顿敦促公司高管更加努力地展示他们的公司正在加拿大投资、创造就业并帮助社区。
Weston urged company executives to work harder to show their companies are investing in Canada, creating employment and helping their communities.
“年轻人担心未来的机会，而我们这些私营部门的人需要做更多的事情，向加拿大其他地区表明，我们所做的事情确实为全国的繁荣做出了贡献，”韦斯顿说。
“Young people worry about opportunities in their future, and those of us who are in the private sector, we need to do more to show the rest of Canada that what we do genuinely contributes to prosperity across the nation,” Weston said.
加拿大商业委员会的成员——韦斯顿是该主要商业组织的成员之一——预计未来十年将需要寻找80万名新工人，“以实现‘建设加拿大’的雄心，”他说。“然而，我们的年轻人读到的、父母常读到的，却是关于你的孩子将如何难以找到工作。”他说， Loblaw 不从事算法定价，即利用数据根据各种条件调整价格，在某些情况下甚至为个别购物者个性化定价的做法。
Members of the Business Council of Canada, a major business organization of which Weston is a member, expect they’ll need to find 800,000 new workers over the next decade “to fulfill the ‘Build Canada’ ambition,” he said. “And yet what our young people read, what often parents read, is about how your child’s going to struggle to get a job.”He said Loblaw does not engage in algorithmic pricing, the practice of using data to change prices based on a variety of conditions, and in some cases personalizing those prices for individual shoppers.
韦斯顿进一步承诺永不从事这种做法，并对其在实体杂货店实施的可能性表示怀疑，尽管目前大多数价格标签已是数字化的。
Weston went further by promising to never engage in the practice and cast doubt on whether it would even be possible in physical grocery stores, despite most of the price signage being digital now.
“稍微想一想他们指控杂货商会做什么，”他说。“指控说你走在商店货架间，价签因为是数字的，当你走近商品时就会变价，因为你穿了件漂亮的毛衣就把价格抬高。这完全是胡说八道。”
“Just think for a second what they’re alleging the grocers will do,” he said. “That you will walk down the aisle of a store, and the price tag, because it’s digital, will change as you approach the product and raise the price because you’re wearing a nice sweater. It’s total nonsense.”