Key takeaways:
- Meat, produce, and cooking oils are more costly than a year back.
- Food prices continue to skyrocket in Canada, with meats, produce, grains, and to cook oil guiding the way.
It’s been occurring for months. You get to the base of your grocery cart at the check-out, go to pay, and then sense the sting of yet another higher-than-usual sum.
Food costs rose 9.7 percent in May compared to the last year, matching the peak in April. Everything is up from meat to fruits and vegetables to pantry staples like flour and cooking oil — which grew 30 percent.
Before this month, Food Banks Canada released data that about one in five Canadians (23 percent) are “consuming less than they think they should” because of inflation.
So what precisely is pushing up your food invoice? CBC News set together a sample cart of 16 everyday things to explain it — and the cost of that’s gone up to $16.25 in the previous year.
Here’s how it adds up:
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If you’re considering using dairy products to increase your protein intake, there’s bad news. This week, the Canadian Dairy Commission agreed to another 2.5 percent cost hike, pushing the cost of milk and things made from milk products, like cheese and yogurt.
The average cost for four liters of milk had increased over the previous year from $5.50 in April 2021 to $6.04 in April 2022.
On average, fresh fruit cost 10 percent extra in April than one year back, while fresh vegetables were up by 8.2 percent for the same time.
The cost of frozen vegetables stayed relatively steady and even declined slightly.
Not only did Food Bank Canada’s survey, led by Mainstreet Research, see that 23 percent of respondents say they were consuming less due to skyrocketing food prices, but almost that many (19 percent) also said they saw themselves starving but unable to eat because there wasn’t sufficient money for food.
Source – cbc.ca
