Sodexo Live, a food and hospitality company, says food inflation can also be hitting the ballpark
Courtesy: Seattle Mariners
Those peanuts and Cracker Jacks may soon cost you more on the ballpark, thanks partially to food inflation, the CEO of a top hospitality company told CNBC.
“It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, everybody is noticing prices going up, and scarcity being a problem in certain product lines,” said Belinda Oakley, Sodexo Live CEO. “After all, we were no exception to that.”
Sodexo Live operates food, beverage and hospitality services at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park in addition to 200-plus sports, cultural and entertainment properties throughout the U.S. Oakley said the corporate’s scale, and the incontrovertible fact that it has about $20 billion in purchasing power, helps to mitigate a number of the inflationary pressure.
Still, higher costs have forced Sodexo Live to get creative with its menus and food selection.
Sodexo Live is changing some ingredients, mixing up its suppliers, and sourcing more items locally to assist reduce costs and avoid passing along 100% of the worth increases to the buyer, Oakley said.
“It should still be an outstanding experience for the fan, but could be more cost-engineered to be sure that that we’re not outpricing them from the market,” she said.
At T-Mobile Park, the corporate is expanding the variety of value menu items it offers, priced between $2 and $4, to a dozen items, up from seven last yr.
One big item that would see sticker shock: ballpark franks, which also occur to be a top-selling concessionary item for Sodexo Live. Oakley cited higher supply chain costs, including packaging and labor, for driving up meat prices.
Sodexo Live says they are attempting to be more creative with their offerings to stop customers from having to pay more.
Courtesy: Seattle Mariners
Location matters, though, in keeping with Oakley, and costs vary depending in your geography. The gap between a ballpark and a vendor could make a giant difference, as can market pricing. For instance, when you take a look at pricing last yr for the common price of a hot dog — it was costliest on the West Coast, with the San Francisco Giants charging $7.50.
“You are going to see the next cost impact in California than you are gonna see in Indiana,” Oakley said.
One other area that’s experiencing harsh pricing pressure, Oakley said, is plastics and disposables: materials in preparing food that is transportable.
“The Russia-Ukraine war has had a big impact,” she said. For instance, the worth of resin, a key ingredient in making disposables, has been hit particularly hard.
But on the subject of pricing, the corporate is keeping the long game in mind.
“We want consumers to proceed to need to have these experiences outside of their each day and to make use of their discretionary spend to really go and luxuriate in hospitality,” she said.