Many Canadian food box subscription companies have managed to keep the price of their delivery boxes steady by offering locally produced food. While the price of imported fresh fruit and vegetables have been increasing at a rapid rate, economic and weather forces have align to make local food a better deal.
In January, food costs for Canadian households were four per cent higher than they were at the same time a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada’s latest consumer price index. Fruits and vegetables fuelled the hike, rising by 12.9 and 18.2 per cent respectively. The low Canadian dollar and a drought in California and Mexico are largely to blame for the situation.
Locally grown produce, therefore, acts like a “buffer” from the steep price increases on imported foods, said Ran Goel, who founded the Greater Toronto Area’s Fresh City Farms in 2011.
Many food box providers include mostly local offerings like root vegetables and apples. So their subscribers may feel the pinch less than those shopping for imported produce at grocery stores.
Fresh City Farms packs its produce bags with an average 70 per cent locally grown food throughout the year.
The only extra cost passed on to consumers, said Goel, is that sometimes they receive slightly less produce than usual in their baskets — a tactic also used by other companies.
In its food boxes, B.C.- and Alberta-based SPUD mostly removed imported fruits like mangoes, bananas and oranges, said Corbin Bourree, SPUD Edmonton’s managing director. Instead, the company has substituted those tropical fruits with more local offerings, including Canadian cucumbers and apples, so that prices don’t spike.
Fresh City Farms doubled the number of customers it serves over the past year, said Goel, which is atypical growth for the company that has been steadily increasing its subscriber base by roughly 40 to 50 per cent a year since 2012.
