Food basket prices up 9 per cent in two years: report

More than ever, consumers, especially the poor, are trying to manage rising food prices.

According to a CBC report, the Common Front for Social Justice group has spent the past two years surveying prices at 31 grocery stores across the province, tallying the prices on the 67 items that Health Canada says make up what it calls a national nutritious food basket.

Jean-Claude Basque, the group’s provincial co-ordinator, said in the article that the basket prices ranged from $257 at one store to $288 at another.

“This year they went up by 3.3 per cent; last year they were up by 5.7," Basque said in the article.

"So in the last two years, that's an increase of nine per cent on these 67 items. So that's quite an increase. Nobody has that kind of increase in their income in the last two years.”

The group issued a list of 11 recommendations to help people handle the steep prices including increasing social assistance rates, and the introduction of healthy food promotion policies at the major food store chains, according to the CBC.