The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday edition that another round of price hikes will start hitting grocery stores in the coming weeks, mostly due to the end of a little-known holiday tradition in the grocery business, says Metro chief executive officer Eric La Fleche. The Post's Jake Edmiston writes that Mr. La Fleche says his chain, like most of its rivals, runs an annual blackout on all cost increases from mid-November until February, as a way of making things as simple as possible during the all-important holiday rush. That meant food suppliers could not ask grocers for more money even as inflation tore through the supply chain, making fuel and freight and packaging more expensive. So the requests piled up. Metro now has a backlog of "thousands" of those requests, says Mr. La Fleche. He says the increases will start working their way through the system and showing up on shelves in February when the blackout ends. Metro reported that food inflation helped drive better-than-expected sales of $4.7-billion in the first quarter. Mr. La Fleche says he cannot pass all those costs onto the consumer and still stay competitive in a market where more cash-strapped consumers are constantly looking for deals.