Over 80 percent of our vegetables and fruits are imported. Prices are expected to increase by 4 to 4.5 per cent next year. The data, come from a report by the University of Guelph’s Food Institute. The report estimates that overall the average Canadian household can expect to spend an additional $345 dollars on food next year.
Canadians could compensate for this extra expense and even save money if they wasted less food. A report in 2014 by Provision Coalition, using Statistics Canada data, estimates the average Canadian household waste about $1,500 of food a year. Reducing this waste by just one third would more than compensate for the increased prices of our food. Getty Stewart, a home economist from Winnipeg, said: “We waste … food because we don’t use it and it gets funky in the fridge, or we forget that we have something in the fridge, or we don’t use our leftovers, or we throw something out because it reaches the best-before date.I think becoming more savvy about our food and not wasting it is important as well, so … we make good use of those grocery dollars.”
Loblaws president, Galen Weston, injected a note of caution when predicting food prices, telling investors that they are difficult to predict since so many factors determine prices: “It’s really, really hard to predict inflation, so we try and be conservative in our own planning…. We didn’t expect quite the level of inflation that we have right now to sustain all the way through the year, so it’s hard to say for sure what’s going to happen in 2016.”
Next year, El Nino may cause more rain in parts of the United States increasing production, particularly in California. However, Sylvain Charlebois, the lead author of the Guelph report, did not think this would be enough to offset the effect of the high US dollar.
Prices of live cattle and hogs have dropped off sharply from the high levels earlier this year. Nevertheless prices of meat are expected to rise up to 4.5 per cent next year. Fish and seafood are also expected to rise by about 3 per cent. Dairy products, eggs, and grains are expected to rise by a more modest two percent.
The overall inflation rate in Canada is considerably less than the rise in food prices. In November the rate was 1.4 percent and in October it was just 1.0 percent. The Bank of Canada target rate is 2.0 percent. The November rise in food prices was 3.4 percent above that of last year in the same month. A steep decline in gasoline prices has helped the consumer at the pump and lowered the cost of travel by auto.
Even though other countries also suffer from the high U.S. dollar, according to Charlebois, Canada is the sole industrialized country where food prices are growing at a rate above 2.5 percent. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has declared that 2016 will be the International Year of the Pulses, that includes lentils, chickpeas, beans, and dry peas. Consumers could support growers of these crops and save some money as they are cheap sources of protein. Home economist Stewart said: “There’s all kinds of reasons why we should be using and enjoying our pulses more. They’re affordable, they’re nutritious, they have a great source of protein, they have a low environmental footprint,”
