The Food Professor, Sylain Charlebois, discusses the factors that are making a healthy diet too expensive for many
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Quiet food insecurity, says the Food Professor, Sylain Charlebois, “is a noticeable decline in the quality and variety of food in shopping baskets and that poses long-term nutritional and health risks.”
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The nature of the makeup of the shopping cart contents is a direct reflection on the cost of food. “Prices are up by about $1,000 over last year for a family of four,” says Charlebois, who teaches at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
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The pressure on food prices accelerated with the imposition of tariffs on U.S. food in March of 2025. Despite the tariffs being removed, food prices did not drop. “In September, food inflation actually rose,” says Charlebois.
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Sunrise
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Today, food prices are still rising at four to six per cent a year. Meat and produce have been identified as the major contributors to increases in grocery prices.
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The driving factors include, but are not limited to, a weaker Canadian dollar, international trade friction, supply chain challenges and a dramatic increase in fuel costs.
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Charlebois describes the situation as, “bad, bad for family budgets and bad for health and it’s due to consumers changing shopping patterns to put food on the table.
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Charlebois joined a Conversation That Matters about the impacts of rising food prices on all of us.
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Learn More about our guest’s career at careersthatmatter.ca
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Join us May 26 for Conversations Live, on unleashing B.C.’s economy.
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