{"id":479,"date":"2021-01-23T03:54:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T03:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=479"},"modified":"2021-01-23T03:54:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T03:54:08","slug":"food-pricing-increase-at-what-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/01\/23\/food-pricing-increase-at-what-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Food pricing increase at what cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As grocery stores are forced to adapt to new COVID-19 restrictions and online shopping, food bills across Canada are posed to increase by three to five per cent according to the<span style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-inline-color\"> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dal.ca\/sites\/agri-food\/research\/canada-s-food-price-report-2021.html\">Canada\u2019s Food Price Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adjustments have been made throughout all industries during COVID-19 but it could be argued that food is one of the fastest changing markets due to consumer buying habits. The beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020 created increased product demand and highlighted issues of hoarding and overconsumption. Majority of the products bought during this time were essential household items and foods such as rice, potatoes and beans, with rice sales increasing by more than 239 per cent compared to the same week in 2019 according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www150.statcan.gc.ca\/n1\/pub\/62f0014m\/62f0014m2020004-eng.htm\">Statistics Canada<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:12px\">Monthly retail sales of grocery stores in Canada 2019\/2020 (Billions)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5053850\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Graph depicting the monthly sales (in billions) of groceries in Canada<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As demand for certain items increases and consumer habits continue to change,&nbsp; pricing is also shifting. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/business\/from-food-to-housing-what-will-cost-you-more-in-2021-1.5243354\">Nathan Janzen in a CTV article<\/a>, grocery costs increased approximately 2.5 per cent in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The official 2021 prediction is that food prices will increase anywhere from three to five per cent across the board, with the biggest increases being in meat and vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:12px\">Average food pricing comparison between 2019-2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5043868\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Graph depicting prices of in demand food during COVID-19 to previous year. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the question is why have food prices surged so much in such a relatively short amount of time and how will this affect us. According to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citynews1130.com\/2020\/06\/30\/coronavirus-food-prices-up-experts\/\">interview published in City News<\/a> with Sylvain Charlebois from Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, the answer lies in COVID-19 restrictions and personal protective equipment that have become mandatory for all stores and their staff. The increased purchase costs for the companies themselves are showing up on the bills of Canadians, and this doesn\u2019t look to be stopping any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the future of food prices is uncertain, if we are to continue down the current trajectory of inflated food costs, the average family of four could end up paying approximately $13,907 in groceries in 2021. This would be an additional $695 per family. With one in seven Canadians currently struggling with food insecurity this higher pricing could lead to further strain and an increased number of people who struggle to obtain food stability.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.slices.co\/stories\/-MRgQsbQxEgcsERtF0Vu\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As grocery stores are forced to adapt to new COVID-19 restrictions and online shopping, food bills across Canada are posed to increase by three to five per cent according to the Canada\u2019s Food Price Report. Adjustments have been made throughout all industries during COVID-19 but it could be argued that food is one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340,"featured_media":487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}