LONDON—Shoppers around the world will pay even more for groceries this year than they did in 2022, according to retailers, consumer goods firms, and investors, unless commodity costs decline or the shift to cheaper store-brand products accelerates.
Retailers and consumer goods producers have been stuck in tough price negotiations for more than a year now, with friction beginning in 2021 over COVID-related chain logjams.
This has since ballooned into fights over the high cost of raw materials and energy in the wake of Ukraine’s war, with rising prices of basic foodstuffs from bread to milk and meat exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis in Europe….