Retailers more accepting of price hikes: ConAgra

By Nicole Maestri

CHICAGO (Reuters) - With commodity inflation at "unprecedented" levels, it is becoming easier to pass along higher prices, even to a discount retailer like Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), ConAgra Foods Inc Chief Executive Gary Rodkin said on Monday.

"Historically, the last thing any of our sales people would want to do is go and talk about pricing with any customer," Rodkin told the Reuters Food Summit. "It's never fun to do that, but the environment is such today that there's much more understanding that there's no choice."

He added: "Even at Wal-Mart, prices are going up."

Food companies have been hit in the past two years by higher prices for everything from energy to ingredients like wheat, cocoa and soybean oil.

ConAgra (CAG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), whose brands include Healthy Choice meals, Hunt's ketchup and Chef Boyardee pasta, has announced price increases for more than 95 percent of its portfolio to offset rising costs.

Rodkin said that "particularly in the last several months," as commodity prices rise, retailers have become more accepting of the need to charge higher prices for goods in their stores.

Retailers are more accepting of passing along price increases for products that are "innovative," like ConAgra's Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers meals, or a product that is heavily reliant on commodities, like Wesson cooking oil, he said.

But it is more difficult to pass along price hikes for the its cheaper products, like Chef Boyardee, he said, which are aimed at saving shoppers money.  Continued...