It's certainly a challenge, as I noted in my remarks.
In early 2022, beer prices have already increased by 5% compared to the same period in 2021. It's certainly a combination of things. We're dealing with historically high malt barley prices and historically high aluminum can prices. As well, we're getting close to historically high fuel prices and labour costs are rising, so it's a perfect storm. When we put on top of that these annual federal beer tax increases, it's been a very challenging time for brewers across the country.
I think the message we're trying to send to the government today, and throughout the coming months, is that there's an idea around consistent small increases every year, but I think we can all agree this is far from normal circumstances when you're dealing with 6% to 7% inflation. We're asking the government to acknowledge there's already a lot of stuff happening in our industry, and to maybe take a second look at these annual increases moving forward, leading up to April 1, 2023.