Maritime shoppers, restaurants react to soaring food inflation

As grocery bills climb, Maritimers are forced to cross some items off their shopping list.

Food inflation is not going unnoticed by Maritimers. In fact, some say grocery shopping has become a dreaded part of everyday life now that simple items are much higher than they used to be.

“When we were younger, we couldn’t carry home $100 worth of groceries, but we can today in one bag,” says shopper Dave Watts.

While Maritimers saw some relief in June when overall inflation took a dip to 2.8 per cent, it’s been a different story for food inflation.

“For 17 months now, food inflation has surpassed inflation. When you go to the grocery store, prices are increasing much faster,” says Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University’s agri-food analytics lab director.

It means supermarket staples like chicken and bread are more expensive, not to mention the price of produce is higher than it was this time last year.

“Attention is slowly shifting from the meat counter to produce, tomatoes, carrots, onions,” says Charlebois.

Tomatoes have increased by more than 30 per cent.

It’s a key ingredient for many Maritime restaurants, who are now left in limbo trying to decide whether to raise prices or wait for the market to cool.

“(Produce) has been really high, which of course causes huge issues for us because we don’t know what that norm is. Our pricing has already been set with our menus, so we can’t really afford to spend another $4,000 or $5,000 to print new menus, and then to see the price go down, of course, (is) unfair to our guests and so on,” says Costa Elles, the owner of Ela Greek Taverna.

“The fear is, is it going to push people away from coming out to eat at their favorite spots?”

As for what’s causing current food inflation, Charlebois says its partly due to energy costs.

“The price of diesel (is) obviously impacting the price of produce and the currency is also a little on the weaker side right now, everything is bought in American dollars,” he says.

Which has made a trip to the grocery store a nightmare for Maritimers like Watts, who tries to keep a healthy diet.

“It’s the necessities of life, the things that are the most healthy to keep us prolonged in life and it’s the most expensive things on the shelves these days.”