'It's going to be tough': Report predicts grocery store prices to keep rising

Food prices in Canada will continue to rise in the New Year, according to a new report.

The 13th edition of Canada’s Food Price Report released on Monday said that overall, food prices will increase by five to seven per cent next year. 

“It's tough for families there's no question,” said grocery shopper Marny Beale in Windsor, Ont.

“I don't know how people with family are doing it because even the basics, bread, milk — and with Christmas, they want to get other stuff in but it's going to be tough.”

The report forecasts that an average family of four, including a man (age 31-50), woman (age 31-50), boy (age 14-18), and girl (age 9-13) will spend up to $16,288.41 per year on food, an increase of up to $1,065.60 from what was observed in 2022.

“Just trying to watch every dollar,” explained consumer Beth Kohut. “I look at flyers and shop around instead of just going to one store now.”

La Stella Supermarket on Erie Street owner Jimmy Pugliese said in an interview that it’s best to keep an eye out for deals, telling CTV News it’s difficult to keep prices down.

“Everything goes up like it's so ridiculous,” Pugliese said. “It's crazy.”

“It doesn't make sense, a lot of things don't make sense. Like I was getting stuff from Montreal delivered here for free. Now, I to have to pay $200 just for the freight on each pallet. It adds up.”

Mercato Fresh president, Marc Romauldi, explained business has been busy since the opening of their second grocery store location in southwestern Ontario last month.

“We buy from Maple Leaf, Schneiders, all the major Ontario premium packers and we deal directly with those packers every day,” he said.

Romauldi said keeping things as local as possible helps keep prices consistent, noting logistic cost savings are passed to customers.

“We’re not a gas station, we keep our prices the same as much as possible. Unless we feel it's going to be a permanent thing then we may look at it but we do our best to keep the prices status quo,” Romauldi said.

Lead author of the report and Dalhousie University professor of food distribution and policy, Sylvain Charlebois, said the first part of 2023 will remain challenging but that consumers should eventually get a break.

“We are expecting an economic downturn and the silver lining of economic downturns is that really things will come down, people will have less money to spend and grocers will have to adjust prices. They won't have much of a choice,” Charlebois told CTV News.

“We are expecting grocers to offer more deals to consumers. Over the last couple of years things have been so crazy, grocers really not have time to offer any loss leaders or deals at the grocery store. We are expecting more deals as consumers become a more frugal than they are now.”

Charlebois suggested to continue searching for deals to find savings.

“If you can alternate between two or three stores, go to one store every week but a different store every week and you'll become better knowledgeable about the market,” he said. “Prices change every single day.” 

- With files from the Canadian Press