While a rate hike from SaskPower will hit your wallet, at least one local meat seller said it won't force them to raise their prices. (File Photo/The Canadian Press)

By Rob Mahon

No Meat Price Hike

Could power rate hike force meat prices up? Prairie Meats CEO says no

Aug 9, 2022 | 5:01 PM

A rate hike is coming for every SaskPower customer, and another one will soon follow. But which businesses might pass the cost onto their consumers?

According to the CEO of Prairie Meats, it won’t be them. So the next time people go to their local butcher shop, they won’t likely see the rate hike reflected in the prices.

“We’ve seen increases over the last five years, so the scale of how fast they’re raising the rates is not shocking,” said Prairie Meats CEO, Casey Collins. “We’ve been planning accordingly to utilize our power in different ways… Not a surprise at all, but not necessarily a great thing for our business.”

Having seen the increase in power costs coming, Collins said they’ve been trying to reduce their costs and redundancies accordingly. As such, he doesn’t expect there will be any additional costs to the customer.

“We’re not expecting any kind of pricing effect or anything like that to the end user from this,” Collins said. “It’s more about us managing our resources correctly so we can handle the increased rates.”

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For Prairie Meats and other retailers, there have been plenty of increased costs over the last two years already. If you’re buying meats of any kind, especially red meat, you’ve likely noticed it at the till already, and Prairie Meats has noticed increased costs on their side of the table as well.

“We’ve seen prices in all the categories we deal with have increased over the calendar year,” Collins said. “They’re kind of trending (up) since the pandemic. It’s starting to kind of come off as reflective of oil prices coming off and the price of fuel, which drives a lot of our costs due to transportation costs and other factors. So we’ve noticed the increase of raw materials substantially over the last year.”

Unlike a rise in fuel costs, which can happen suddenly and hit every sector, Collins said they can see this increase coming, which has helped them get ready for it.

“It effects the economy I guess less up-and-down or volatilely,” Collins said. “I’m not expecting this to cause the same effect as a traditional oil increase. Those are very quick, they cause rapid increases, they hit every sector, and it seems like it’s just continuously passed through. This one, I think a lot of companies can manage it.”

Collins added the market for fuel has changed drastically over the last couple of weeks, which should help stabilize prices.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP