Katie Clark cancelled her plans to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year because of rising food costs.
The 32-year-old Toronto-based single mom says this isn’t the only way rising food costs have affected her over the last year.
“It’s really affected what I make and how I cook, and it’s taken the joy out of it as well,” she says. “I don’t want to spend that much money on ingredients.”
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Clark is not alone.
According to a recent report from the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity, food costs were the top life concern for Canadians this year for the fifth year in a row, and many people have changed their grocery shopping and cooking habits accordingly.
“Over half of Canadians indicate that they are very concerned about this issue, and that level has increased a significant three points compared to last year,” Ashley Bruner, the centre’s research manager, said at a recent conference in Mississauga, Ont. It also ranked higher than concerns about inflation, health care and housing prices.
Concerns related to the cost of energy and the national economy have fallen from the top five since last year.
Although concern about the overall cost of food has been increasing significantly over the past few years, concern about the affordability of food has grown at an even steeper rate.
As Canadians feel the pinch of other economic factors such as inflation, interest rates and housing prices, food is seen as expensive and increasingly unaffordable.
This year’s Canada Food Price Report also estimated that food prices in Canada will continue to rise by five to seven per cent, translating into an extra $1,065 in food costs, on average, for a family of four.
Last year, food cost increases were higher, according to the report, with jumps of 10.8 per cent in Alberta, 10.3 per cent in Saskatchewan and 10.7 per cent in Manitoba.
Though a report published earlier this year showed Canada ranked second lowest in the world for food inflation rates, many Canadians feel discouraged by consistent jumps in costs. According to the CCFI report, only a quarter of respondents felt that Canadian food was among the most affordable in the world.
University of Saskatchewan professor Stuart Smyth, who was involved in creating the Canada Food Cost 2023 report, said the mainstream media isn’t giving Canadians a global context for food inflation, although he’s not sure that would have much of an impact on morale.
“Knowing food inflation in Canada is low compared to other countries provides little to no comfort to consumers,” he said. “Consumers want answers as to why food prices continue to rise in Canada.”
However, there are no simple answers. Reasons involve myriad factors, in Canada and globally, that have varying rates of impact and can change relatively quickly.
“As an expert whose job it is to stay on top of these issues and factors, I find it challenging to be consistently up to date on these multiple factors,” said Smyth. “It would take a great deal of time and effort for the average consumer to develop a good grasp of the economic complexities that contribute to food inflation.”
The CCFI report found that Canadians are equally as overwhelmed.
While 41 per cent of respondents said they believed rising costs were due to supply chain issues, another 34 per cent believed they were due to businesses prioritizing profits, compared to 20 per cent last year. Only seven per cent connected higher food prices to world conflict and labour shortages and six per cent with severe weather events.
Bruner says given the complexity of the situation, it’s not surprising that the report showed only a quarter of Canadians feel their food is the most affordable in the world.
“And that’s an opinion that’s been worsening, a significant six points compared to 2019,” she said.
Smyth said that number is a win for the food industry.
“This is higher than I would have estimated. This shows that one in four Canadians is listening to the food industry’s messaging and that if the food industry continues providing this information, hopefully a greater percentage of Canadians will become aware of this,” he said.
In light of rising costs and concerns about affordability, Canadians have adapted their food habits, the CCFI report found. They are buying more frozen food, adapting recipes, changing grocery stores and eating less meat. Consumers also reported switching to plant-based meat in an effort to save money.
For consumers such as Clark, cost has superseded all other factors at the grocery store. She said she no longer buys organic eggs, instead favouring bulk packages from Costco.
