No end in sight for high food prices
Posted Oct 24, 2015 3:31 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was a wild September when it came to some of the prices of food we enjoy at the grocery store.
One expert doesn’t anticipate much in the way of change moving forward, thanks to continued inflation that can be blamed on the loonie.
University of Guelph food distribution professor Sylvain Charlebois believes retailers are going to defend their margins by keeping prices up, particurlarly with meat.
To see a slight increase there was a surprise, as he had expected those numbers to soften following barbecue season.
“Lettuce is actually the big item this month, (with an) 8.5 increase in just one month,” Charlebois said. “That’s probably the highest jump we’ve seen this year.”
Other notable jumps include, apples, which increased by 2.4 per cent, butter, which went up by 1.7 per cent, and pork, which increased by 1.3 per cent.
Charlebois credits a lot of that to the lower loonie, and food that we need to import into the country.
He doesn’t see any variables moving forward that could turn into cheaper prices for the average consumer.
