TORONTO — It turns out Canadian operators and consumers won’t see a break in dairy costs in 2010.
Dairy production costs may have fallen by nearly two per cent this year, but The Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) has announced that there will be no change to the price of industrial milk in 2010. This after a meeting with the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA) to discuss the issue last week.
According to the CRFA, the price of industrial milk — used to make cheese, butter, ice cream and yogurt — has skyrocketed by 60 per cent during the past 15 years, or twice the rate of inflation, making Canadian dairy prices among the highest in the world.
“The decision by the CDC to keep dairy prices artificially high does nothing to reverse a long-term trend of falling demand for dairy products. The CDC is pricing dairy right off our menus,” says Garth Whyte, president and CEO of the CRFA. “Year after year the CDC forces Canadians to swallow price increases when production costs go up, but they refuse to pass along the savings when production costs go down.”
CRFA research indicates that the restaurant industry purchases nearly $2.5 billion in dairy products annually.
