As some of you know I work in the food industry. I'm seeing unprecedented increases in the cost of our raw materials needed to bottle our products. Label printing has gone up at least three times since 2019. The biggest kicker is the price of jars. Nobody in Canada produces jars so they all come from overseas (usually China). I ordered two pallets of jars this week (375ml and 750ml) and got a phone call from our supplier in Dartmouth confirming I still wanted to order as the price of the 750ml jar has doubled since I ordered last (which was this past summer)! It all boils down to the cost of shipping. The cost of a container load of product has tripled since last year. Without getting into political discussion it is a shame we can't get products like jars locally. The only bottling product I can get made in Canada is 375g plastic bears for honey which are made in Canada. My other concern is having enough materials to meet demand. In the 5 years of working for this company I haven't seen demand as high. A typical purchase order for a large grocery store a year or two ago would have been 5 cases of our product per week.  Now I'm seeing purchase orders for as many as 22 cases for one store in one week. 

  I'm sure all the other food producers are having the same issues. I did read that Canadian's can expect to pay on average $1000 more in 2022 for food and I think this assumption is accurate.