A Restaurant Owner’s Lament: Food Costs Are Rising Significantly
I talked to a restaurant owner last Friday after a fine meal at one of my favourite Chatham-Kent dining establishments. After dinner I happened to meet the owner/chef outside in another locale and we got talking. He was lamenting the increased cost of food.
He said lemons are up 50 cents, milk is up 30 cents and pasta prices are through the roof. I like this guy; in fact he is one of my favourites. In my opinion he is a chef for the ages, mixing all his ingredients together in one culinary masterpiece after another. He knows me; I’ve been going there for years. He never hesitates to ask me about the crops and economics behind them.
So when he started into the cost of food, I was hoping he’d cut me at least a little slack. I was assuming based on my day job that he might not be too critical of food price increases. However, he didn’t let up. In his opinion his restaurant was being hit hard by price increases, which he couldn’t sustain.
Some of you might be yawning at such a revelation. Keep in mind most of my writing and broadcasting career is spent talking about production agriculture and how farmers can make a buck in agricultural markets. So hearing my restaurant friend lamenting the high cost of food doesn’t always land on fertile ground.
True joy in life though comes when you start listening instead of focusing on telling everybody else what you want to hear. It is widely assumed in agricultural circles that the biofuel revolution, which has pushed commodity prices skyward, will last for a very long time. Most of my agricultural audience doesn’t want to hear any different and for the most part they don’t. There are a myriad of agricultural analysts out there who aren’t listening to consumers saying no to higher food prices. So when my restaurant guy says he’s paying too much for food I listen intently.
It is such a paradox for our society. For instance last week I had a real run of eating out and it surely cost me a fortune. I was scheduled into the largest farm show in the world in Louisville Kentucky at midweek. That saw me trundle over to every kind of food outlet imaginable over a three-day period. Almost everywhere I went for a bit to eat, it was packed. Sure, I was at kiosks at a trade show for part of that, but on at least one occasion I went to a real restaurant, which was packed the gills.
My bill at the end of the night for my one main restaurant meal was about $18. After a couple of $8 hamburger meals on the way home, I set off for the grocery store to fill the shelves at home. $180 later, I walked out of there with a huge amount of groceries, surely good for a weeks set of meals.
At the same time if somebody came form Mars and put my groceries under the microscope, they’d probably ask me what I was smoking. There is a lot more than meat, potatoes and vegetables. How about the processed crackers, shredded cheese and goofy things like “lunchables.” WHAT THE HECK ARE LUNCHABLES! The point being in modern society groceries mean many things to many people. Food means many things to many people. Eating out for your food has almost become ubiquitous. So when a restaurant owner starts chiding me about the cost of food, there must be something to it.
If this were 1975 I’d say his reticence, as a restaurant owner would eventually show up in reduced demand for grains and livestock eventually taking its toll on Chatham-Kent’s farms. The reality is though in 2008 we might be still a long way from that. The reason for that has all to do with burgeoning food demand from China. I’ve talked about that before in this column. However, in 2008 China’s burgeoning population is pushing the world’s food envelope.
For instance China’s demand for vegetable oils is skyrocketing. It was this way before they announced recently that 40% of their canola crop has been destroyed by the very harsh 2008 Chinese winter. Gone is all of that canola oil, which will obviously have to be replaced by soybean and other edible oils. Our world’s agricultural markets will be going crazy.
This phenomenon has squeezed almost every other facet of our food system. Yes, that’s why my restaurant friend is lamenting his costs. I’m sure he’s also lamenting his competition’s penchant for Chinese food ingredients, which I talked about last week. For now though, he’s a lone wolf in a consumer world who don’t notice what’s happening. Simply put, food in this country in modern history has been cheap and plentiful and Canadian consumers take it for granted. However, take it from me my friends, your food costs will be rising significantly this year. However, with your disposable incomes spending less on food every year, I’m sure you’ll hardly notice.