Food inflation sees largest jump in 50 years, says Dalhousie professor

Statistics Canada says food inflation hit a 50-year high in March.

Inflation numbers released Tuesday brought both good news and bad. Annual inflation slowed to 2.3 per cent from 2.6 per cent in February.

However, it was a different story for food inflation.

“We were all expecting a jump with food inflation from February to March but not 1.9 per cent. It is the highest since 1974,” says the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Lab, Sylvain Charlebois.

After the calculations, the food number settled at 3.2 per cent month-over-month.

“They’re going up. Especially the produce. I get salads and stuff like that,” says Steve Lotley

“I’m seeing that I get less for my dollars,” adds Marie James.

As to why, there are a few factors, including the trade war with the United States, a weaker Canadian dollar and March was the first full month after the GST holiday.

“You do have to look for the deals. I tried to do Canadian as much as I can. I will pay a little extra to buy Canadian, but it’s expensive,” James says.

According to Charlebois, some categories of food seeing the highest increases are ready-to-eat items like eggs, fruit and meat. One factor at play includes avian flu.

As for the cost of pork and beef, it could be prices are catching up after being low.

“Oil prices are much lower now, which is great, so that’s going to help. The other thing is that we are expecting a stronger dollar and that’s also going to help,” says Charlebois.

Add in that the local farming season is just around the corner, Charlebois says this jump in grocery bills could be short-term pain.

The March inflation data comes as the Bank of Canada is expected to make its next interest rate decision on Wednesday. Rates dropped last month to 2.75 per cent.