Grocery food inflation high as shoppers head into the holidays

The cost of groceries has grown year-over-year, with fruit, beef and coffee being the main culprits. Jeff Keele has more.

There is bad news on grocery prices as shoppers prepare for the big meal this month.

Chance Tremblay is hosting Christmas dinner. He said it’s very hard to get by right now because of prices.

“We have to mix and match what we can grab one month and what we can another month,” Tremblay said.

Jay Jaikaran is hosting too and is stocking up at the meat counter.

“The cost of food is up; like, everything is extremely high.”

And new numbers show just how high.

Statistics Canada said grocery food inflation rose in November year over year by 4.7 per cent, above the consumer inflation rate, which was 2.2 per cent.

Sylvain Charlebois, the Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said everything is on the rise.

“There are few places at the grocery store that are safe places to go if you’re on a tight budget, unfortunately,” Charlebois said.

Statistics Canada said fresh fruit, beef and coffee were top contributors, in part because of shortages and bad weather.

December might not be much better.

Charlebois said a lot of the Christmas dinner staples, like ham and veggies, are going up.

But he said there could be some good news with the main dish. Charlebois said some grocers are cutting the price of their turkeys to attract shoppers.

“Turkeys have been used as loss leaders, really to get you in there and buy other things which are a little more expensive, like cranberries, potatoes and other things you would need,” he said.

Charlebois also said as we head towards Christmas, deals on birds could be drying up.

At Cantor’s Quality Meats and Groceries, owner Ed Cantor said the ham price is stable this year, but turkey is a bit more.

“75 cents more a pound compared to last year,” Cantor said.

Over the last couple of years, the higher prices have seen more people do potluck dinners to spread out the cost.

Despite the expense, hosts Jaikaran and Tremblay said they’ll cover the costs of the meal.

“We’re just going to try to do it ourselves this year,” Tremblay said.

“It just happens once a year; family comes in from out of the city, so you know we’re just trying to have fun for the holidays,” Jaikaran said.