Over the past year, increasingly expensive fruit and vegetable prices in Canada have contributed to driving up the annual inflation rate which measured 2 per cent in January. According to the Consumer Price Index, released by Statistics Canada on Friday 19 February, food prices increased by four per cent in January 2016, compared to the same month a year earlier. Fruits rose 12.9 per cent and vegetable prices soared 18.2 per cent.
The five foods that rose the most between January 2015 and January 2016 were: lettuce, which cost 17.9 per cent more; tomatoes, which jumped 11.9 per cent; apples rose 16.6 per cent and the average retail price last month for a kilogram of apples was $4.22; oranges which rose 11 per cent in price with a kilogram of oranges last month costing, on average, $3.51; and nuts in general increased by 7.4 per cent.
'Driven by the weakened currency'
"Clearly many importers had to procure some produce outside of North America and that really increases transportation costs," said Sylvain Charlebois, professor of marketing and consumer studies at the University of Guelph Food Institute. "Peppers — we've had to go to Europe to get some of those products — so that's why some products have increased by more than 30 per cent in a month."
The high prices are really driven by the weakened currency, he said. "As contracts are renewed, we're going to see that percentage drop over the next little while. It will not gain momentum."
Michel Sekimonyo, an analyst at Statistics Canada, said a supply disruption caused by a lack of rain in California also affected the price of imported produce.
Sekimonyo also noted that some of those monthly increases, like the spike in the cost of tomatoes, can be attributed to the seasonal nature of the product. Curiously, potatoes recorded a five per cent drop in price. But Sekimonyo said that may be related in part to last year's consumer scare, after metal objects were found in some potatoes in Nova Scotia and P.E.I.
However the price of spuds picked up in January, rising 2.6 per cent from December 9.
