Shoppers won’t be able to buy Folgers coffee at Loblaw stores for much longer. The grocery chain is removing all Folgers products from its shelves after a disagreement over price hikes.
In an email sent to retailers on Wednesday, Loblaw said talks with the company that makes Folgers didn’t lead to a deal. The company claims the coffee maker wanted to raise prices too much, and Loblaw felt the increase wasn’t fair.
“After weeks of trying to reach an agreement, we couldn’t accept Folgers’ large and unfair price hikes,” said Suren Theivakadacham, a Loblaw category director, in the email obtained by The Canadian Press.
“We’re doing this for our customers — we don’t want to raise prices when we don’t have to,” the email said. It also included a list of other coffee brands that will be available in place of Folgers.
This comes at a time when coffee prices in Canada are going up. According to Statistics Canada, coffee and tea prices rose 13.4% in April compared to the same month last year. That’s a much bigger jump than the 3.8% rise in overall grocery prices and the 1.7% inflation rate.
Experts say bad weather and temperature changes have made it harder to grow coffee, leading to smaller crops. Other reasons for higher prices include the weak Canadian dollar and tariffs Canada placed on U.S. products. Even though the U.S. doesn’t grow much coffee, Canadian suppliers often buy from American companies.
Folgers is made by the J.M. Smucker Company in Ohio. That company has already raised coffee prices twice in the past year. CEO Mark Smucker said in February that more price increases were likely coming.
When asked for comment this week, the company did not respond.
Loblaw spokeswoman Catherine Thomas said the price hikes didn’t match the actual cost increases and the company didn’t want to pass those extra costs on to shoppers.
“We tried to work things out with the manufacturer, but it didn’t work,” Thomas said in a statement. “We know this may be frustrating for some customers and we’re sorry, but we believe this is the right thing to do to help with rising prices.”
She said most Loblaw stores will run out of Folgers coffee in the next week or two.
