BBB gives Torch Awards for Ethics to companies

People over profits. A Southern Champion Tray official on Wednesday brought up that concept, cited earlier by a high school student, while accepting an ethics award from the Chattanooga area Better Business Bureau.

“If you put people over profits, if you get that right, a lot of good things happen,” Bruce Zeiser, executive vice president for the Chattanoogabased employer, said.

Southern Champion Tray was one of several companies that received a BBB Torch Award for Ethics at a luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Also, 10 area high school students were awarded scholarships after writing winning essays on what ethics mean to businesses and communities.

Southern Champion, which makes such products as food sleeves, trays and cupcake inserts while employing 650 people in Chattanooga, won the Torch Award for companies with more than 100 workers.

Also winning Torch Awards were JHM Certified Public Accountants, for companies with 50 to 99 employees; The Double Cola Co., for companies with 11 to 49 employees; and Lady Bug Exterminating Co., for companies with one to 10 employees.

Zeiser said in an interview after the luncheon that companies need to make sure their priorities are right.

“People are the main thing,” he said. “Profits are the oxygen. You have to have it, but you don’t live for it.”

Southern Champion, a 95-year-old venture, is building a $60 million expansion at Centre South Riverport off Amnicola Highway. Zeiser said steel is going up on the project, which will include more than 1 million square

Wednesday’s report also underscored the challenges for the Federal Reserve and White House in their struggles to tame inflation.

In April, a fallback in gas prices helped slow overall inflation. Nationally, average prices for a gallon of gas fell to as low as $4.10 in April, according to AAA, after having spiked to $4.32 in March. But since then, gas prices have surged to a record $4.40 a gallon.

Grocery prices, too, are still soaring, in part because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened the cost of wheat and other grains. Food prices rose 1% from March to April and nearly 11% from a year ago. That year-over-year increase is the biggest since 1980.

Turmoil overseas could potentially accelerate inflation in the coming months. If the European Union, for example, decides to bar imports of Russian oil, world oil prices could rise. So could U.S. gas prices. And China’s COVID-19 lockdowns could worsen supply chain snarls.

In April, airfares soared a record 18.6%, the largest monthly increase since record-keeping began in 1963. And hotel prices jumped 1.7% from March to April.

Southwest Airlines said last month that it foresees much higher revenue and profits this year as Americans flood airports after having postponed travel for two years. Southwest said its average fare soared 32% in the first three months of the year from the same period last year.

There are, though, signs that supply chains are improving for some goods. Wednesday’s report showed that prices for appliances and clothing both fell 0.8%, while the cost of used cars dropped 0.4%, the third straight decline. Used cars and other goods drove much of the initial inflation spike last year as Americans stepped up spending after vaccines became

widespread.