TIM HORTONS INC. $52 - Toronto symbol THI

TIM HORTONS INC. $52 (Toronto symbol THI; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 157.4 million; Market cap: $8.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.timhortons.com) has raised the prices of muffins, sandwiches and other items at its coffee-and-donut stores in Canada and the U.S. That’s because the drought in North America is pushing up its costs for wheat, canola oil and other ingredients.

The increases are unlikely to hurt customer traffic or sales, particularly because the company did not increase coffee prices.

Tim Hortons is a buy.

Vernon is a managing editor at TSI Network, working with a team of analysts and reporters to develop editorial content focused on Canadian investors. An award-winning journalist, Vernon has years of general and business reporting experience at five of North America’s major dailies, including the Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Sun-Times. He was also business editor for one of North America’s oldest newspapers. He led the development of ten national business-to-business magazines, including Wealth Professional and Insurance Business Canada. The Toronto native is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s school of journalism, and holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.