Several sectors have been impacted by the supply chain woes, but as the holiday season nears, Campbell’s CEO said he anticipated the availability of the products, ABC News reported.
In an interview with “Good Morning America”, Campbell’s Soup Company CEO Mark Clouse said that the efforts of the company are the outcome of “the amazing work of our teams on the front lines and plants and logistics and sales teams.”
“You’ll have all of your holiday favorites on the shelves ready to go. They’ve worked hard to do it and, you know, I would say plan early, but I think we’re in great shape going into the holidays,” Campbell said.
Consumers are not only concerned with the availability of the products, though, as they also worry about the item’ prices.
Food prices from grocery stores are predicted by the Economic Research Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase by 1 to 2 percent this year. According to the recent Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is a rise of 1 percent on the food-at-home index over the month following the continued increase on all six main grocery food group indexes.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines “food-at-home” as purchases from grocery and supermarket establishments.
“There’s also been a significant amount of inflation that we’ve seen over the last several months,” Clouse said. “We use every tool we’ve got to keep prices affordable. We know how important it is, especially for this time of year and through holiday celebrations so we’ve worked hard to keep the prices reasonable but there has been an increase in price.”
The BLS report said that other food at home index “rose 1.2% over the month, its largest monthly increase since April 2020, near the onset of the pandemic.”
“Cereals and bakery products rose 1% in October following a 1.1% increase the prior month. The index for nonalcoholic beverages rose 0.8 percent in October, the index for dairy and related products rose 0.2%, and the index for fruits and vegetables advanced 0.1%,” it added.
Meanwhile, Clouse said: “Inflation, I would expect to continue to see as we move forward into ’22, but count on us to be doing everything we can to find ways to keep the prices reasonable and affordable, especially through the holiday season.”
Campbell, in an effort to balance production costs that could be shouldered by the customers, depends on “a combination of bringing in a lot of new workers into our facilities as well as the teams performing very well,” Clouse said. “I would expect as we go into ’22 you’re going to see steady improvement on that front and we’re expecting as we get into the new year to be fully back in supply on most of our products,” he continued.
