Attention shoppers: Price hikes are ahead, but consumer companies hope you won’t notice

Attention shoppers: Price hikes are ahead, but consumer companies hope you won’t notice

Look no further than Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble sharing plans this week to raise prices to offset rising commodity costs. The costs of raw materials, ranging from lumber to resin, are surging, so companies are taking steps to protect profits.The price increases follow a year of surging demand for a host of items from paper towels to jars of peanut butter. Sales of consumer packaged goods rose 9.4% to $1.53 trillion last year, according to the Consumer Brands Association. Many manufacturers pulled back on advertising and promotions as they tried to keep up with demand, gaining market share without much marketing.ING Chief International Economist James Knightley is forecasting consumer prices will continue to rise in the near term and could gain almost 4% by May, compared with the same time a year ago. The consumer price index, which tracks how much U.S. consumers pay for a basket of goods, rose 2.6% in March from the year-ago period, according to the Department of Labor.

Inventories are 'too low'

Price hikes get stealthy

Moody's analyst Linda Montag said that she doesn't view higher prices as a competitive advantage because all consumer companies are facing higher commodity costs. Besides Coke and P&G, PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, General