Thank you.
Hello. We know that the situation is difficult for Canadian families, who have been struggling with high inflation, including food inflation, for almost a year now. That is why, at Metro, our teams are working tirelessly to give our customers the best value possible every day under all our banners, through competitive prices, a full range of private label products and effective weekly promotions.
As parliamentarians, you have a role to play in understanding the real causes of inflation and in working with the industry to find ways to mitigate supply chain challenges. More than ever, we need to work together to find solutions to the cost-of-living crisis in Canada.
The period of high inflation that we are experiencing is a global reality, but Canada is doing better than most other G7 countries. Even so, there is no doubt that food prices have gone up because of the rising costs of suppliers and producers.
As a recent Statistics Canada report indicated, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, adverse weather conditions and transportation and labour challenges are among the many factors that are contributing to rising food prices. All of these factors have resulted in an unprecedented number of price increases by our suppliers. In 2022, Metro received over 27,000 requests for cost increases of more than 10% on average from grocery suppliers alone, which is about three times the annual average.
This year, we are continuing to receive a large number of requests for cost increases from our suppliers. Our teams are dealing with these requests in a responsible manner by negotiating firmly, fairly and transparently in order to reduce the impact on our customers. However, it is important to keep in mind that our retail prices do not reflect the full impact of inflation because we absorbed some of the cost increases.
Metro is an open company, but we are competing in an open, very competitive market for customers, talent and capital with both Canadian companies and American giants, such as Costco, Walmart and Amazon, which represent a large share of the market. I would also like to point out that these American companies did not participate in the committee work.
The suggestions that we are somehow behind food inflation, that we are using it to inflate our profit margins and that we are not paying our fair share of taxes are simply not true. As we report publicly every quarter, our profit margins have remained stable for many years. Since the beginning of our 2022 financial year, our profit margin on food products finally dropped and was balanced by a larger profit margin on pharmacy products.
I would like to point out that no one at Metro wants to continue to operate in an environment of high inflation. We are looking forward to getting back to a more normal environment. It is better for our customers and our business. In the meantime, we will continue to offer our customers the best value possible under all of our banners. Trust in our company is determined by our growing loyal customer base, and those customers demonstrate that trust every day through hundreds of thousands of transactions.
In closing, I hope that all members of the committee recognize that the entire supply chain is experiencing an unprecedented period of prolonged stress. Focusing on grocery stores is not going to resolve the problem of food inflation because we are not causing it and we are not benefiting from it. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we need to work together to find solutions to the challenges associated with the high cost of living Canadians are experiencing. Thank you.