A Costco location is pictured in Ottawa on Monday, July 11, 2022. Pierre Riel, the executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Costco Wholesale International and Canada, appeared before the parliamentary committee on food inflation on April 17, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
OTTAWA – A Costco executive has told a parliamentary committee studying food inflation that the wholesale retailer has not sought to increase its profits amid rapidly rising grocery prices.
Pierre Riel, the executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Costco Wholesale International and Canada, spoke before the committee Monday evening.
Riel is the fifth executive of a major grocer to appear before the committee, after calls from federal politicians for the grocery industry to be more transparent about rising prices and profits.
Early in March, the heads of Loblaw, Metro and Empire, the largest Canadian grocers, told MPs that food inflation has not been caused by profit-mongering.
Later the same month, Walmart Canada’s CEO echoed the others, saying the American giant is not trying to profit from food inflation.
Grocery inflation has been outpacing overall inflation, with prices rising almost 11 per cent in February compared with a year earlier.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2023.
