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How expensive are food products getting in Canada?

A breakdown of how much prices on some popular items have increased year over year
3/17/2022
Unrecognizable woman checking a long supermarket receipt with grocery on foreground.
Shutterstock/stokkete

Canadians can't seem to catch a break at the grocery store as food prices continue to soar. Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that food prices rose 7.4% in February compared with a year ago. The rise came as the annual inflation rate climbed to 5.7%, the highest it's been since 1991.

While some economists forecast a slowdown in inflation in the back half of the year, there is more price pressure to come before we get there.

"Unfortunately, we're likely to see further acceleration in inflation in March," says Josh Nye, senior economist at RBC.

Statistics Canada also highlighted dairy products in the consumer price index release because they were one of the biggest contributors to February's price gains. The rise in the price of dairy products can partly be attributed to the Canadian Dairy Commission's decision to increase the farm gate milk price by six cents per litre on Feb. 1.

Here's a breakdown of how much the prices for some popular food items rose between February 2021 and February 2022:

Milk: 6.6%

Eggs: 7.2%

Chicken: 10.4%

Beef: 16.8%

Bacon: 16.1%

Apples: 5.3%

Oranges: 9.4%

Bananas: 3.7%

Other fresh fruit and vegetables: 3.8%

Bread, rolls, buns: 3.7%

Coffee: 8.5%

Nut butter: 5.6%

Potato chips and other snacks: 5.8%

Beer purchased from stores: 3.6%

Wine purchased from stores: 2.1%

Liquor purchased from stores: 1%

Baby food: 4.3%

Delivery app services (includes delivery from grocery stores and restaurants): 1.4%

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