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The high cost of everything hitting home Shopping for the cheapest groceries
Fuel prices slamming trucking industry
ARTHUR WILLIAMS
TED CLARKE
Canadians paid an average of 9.7 per cent more for food in April this year than April 2021, according to data released by Statistics Canada last month. Prices are higher in just about every aisle in the grocery store, Statistics Canada reported, with products like bread (up 12.2 per cent), pasta (up 19.6 per cent), meat (up 10.1 per cent), fresh vegetables (up 8.2 per cent), rice (up 7.4 per cent) and fresh fruit (up 10 per cent) seeing significant increases. The rapid rise in food prices has resulted in many Canadians having to make hard choices about what they can afford. National polls conducted in March on behalf of Food Banks Canada showed that 23 per cent of Canadians are eating “less than they should” because of the rising cost of food – those numbers rose to 40 per cent for people who earned less than $50,000 per year and 45 per cent for Indigenous households. In addition, one in five people polled reported going hungry at least once between March 2020 and March 2022 With many Prince George residents feeling the pinch of higher food prices, the Citizen decided to put the city’s four largest grocery retailers – Costco,
obtain free or discounted items. Reusable bags were used to avoid being charged for plastic bags. If the size or quantity specified in the list wasn’t available, the closest available size or quantity was chosen. This was especially a factor at Costco, which specializes in bulk sales. To make this an apples-to-apples comparison, we have listed both the total price and the price adjusted for quantity. After the Citizen’s test, all the food was donated to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s downtown drop-in centre to help feed people in need in Prince George.
The trucking industry is in big trouble and high fuel prices are only part of the story. Steve Tosoff has been a trucker since 1989 and never in that 33 years has he been so worried about what’s happening and he predicts dire consequences unless the government intervenes. Tosoff, the general manager of Overhaul Ventures Corp., a Prince George trucking firm that employs a staff of about 60, says the unprecedented cost of fuel, cutthroat competition for drivers who are already in short supply and the refusal of governments to cut fuel taxes is reducing profitability in the industry and could put it into an irreversible tailspin. “It’s crippling,” said Tosoff. “Our trucks are averaging $1,800-1,900 a day in fuel and we have 27 trucks doing that. “Rates don’t go up just because we need them to go up, they go up when the customer figures they should. We haul for a pretty good customer that treats us pretty fair but when fuel goes up everybody’s slow to make changes, but when fuel goes down they quickly cut the rate. It’s one of those things where you can’t win.”
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Save-on-Foods (Spruceland location), Real Canadian Superstore and Wal-Mart – to a side-by-side price comparison test, to see which store offered the best value for the money. THE RULES Citizen reporter Arthur Williams visited all four stores on Wednesday (June 8), between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., and shopped for the same list of 12 staple food items with a $100 budget at each store. For each item, the cheapest option available on the shelf at each store was selected, including sale items, generic store brands and membership discounts. However, no member points were used to
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CITIZEN STAFF PHOTO
The Prince George Citizen comparison shopped for 12 staple-food items at Superstore, Save-on-Foods (Spruceland location), Wal-Mart and Costco to see which store offered the best value for your grocery budget.
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Citizen staff
Citizen staff