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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on food cost inflation easing, latest forecasts · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The price of groceries might be starting to soften. Supply
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: costs to their groceries went up one point nine percent
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: in June, so they still climbing, but the smallest monthly
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: increase since Feb twenty five. Brad Olsen, Infametric's principle economists
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: with us this morning, brag, good morning, good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Thoughts well, I mean, effectively, what we're seeing here is
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  Speaker 2: that there's a slower pace that's coming through. Part of that, though,
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  Speaker 2: is as fuel prices have come back from their highs
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  Speaker 2: a couple of months ago. They're not cheap, right, but
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  Speaker 2: they are down a bit. Some of the various fuel
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  Speaker 2: adjustment factors that companies were putting on because it was
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  Speaker 2: so much more expensive to transport goods, including grocery supplies,
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  Speaker 2: those are now coming back off the other side, which
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  Speaker 2: is one of the reasons you're seeing this less intense
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of an increase. The worry, I guess is that we
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: still feel like we're almost in a holding pattern. Things
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: seem to be better at the moment, that's great, we
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: still don't know what's going to happen globally, you know,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: every second of every day. Because it does seem to
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  Speaker 2: keep changing, and most importantly, we have seen a spike
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: and shipping costs in the last couple of months that
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  Speaker 2: we do worry might sort of have a second wave
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  Speaker 2: effect eventually, but for now that impact is a whole
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  Speaker 2: lot less than we might have been first expecting. That's
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  Speaker 2: good enough news for now.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I saw the survey come out yesterday for Q three.
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  Speaker 1: This is of the forecasters and inflation expectations not quite
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  Speaker 1: as high as perhaps they thought.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, and I think sort of a continuation of that
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  Speaker 2: theme where things have not been as intense that you
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  Speaker 2: haven't seen those fuel prices. Oil prices hold as high
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  Speaker 2: as we might have first fared. Again, it's not that
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: that good. If you look at some of those inflation expectations,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it's not that they're low, it's just that they've come
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  Speaker 2: off that sort of immediate spike that we had in
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  Speaker 2: the second quarter when we all thought, look, fuel prices
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  Speaker 2: were going to remain high for quite a while. And
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  Speaker 2: again I don't think anyone's discounting that that will never happen.
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  Speaker 2: But the central view at the moment, everyone, looking through
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  Speaker 2: all the information we can try and gather, suggests that
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  Speaker 2: things should be less intense going forward, and I guess
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  Speaker 2: that the difficulty right from a household perspective is that
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  Speaker 2: it depends on lot on exactly what you're buying. We're
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: still going to see electricity prices that are going to
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  Speaker 2: be increasing by a significant amount. When we've looked through
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  Speaker 2: our supplier index, we've found that the likes of protein
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  Speaker 2: costs continue to go up because there's strong demand for that,
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  Speaker 2: but not quite as much supply. What we've also seen though,
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  Speaker 2: and one that's we haven't normally seen it looking through
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  Speaker 2: these figures, is just it's a bit broader. So it's
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  Speaker 2: not just food products. Now you're seeing you laundry products,
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  Speaker 2: the likes of you know, soaps and deodorants. So it
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  Speaker 2: does look like maybe less intense, less of a big increase,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: but more increases across the board.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Brad Olson in for Metric Principle Economists.
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  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 2:41
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• 2:44
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