inflation picture is improving for many line items on Canadians’ household budgets — with at least one notable exception.Fresh data from Statistics Canada released Tuesday shows the price of food continues to soar, even as the headline inflation figure ticked down at the start of 2023.
Read more: Inflation keeps cooling. Does that mean we’re done with interest rate hikes? Read next: Here’s how interest rates could affect Canada’s housing market in 2023 The agency said food prices were up 10.4 per cent year-over-year in January — up slightly from December — while the rest of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) items decelerated to an annual pace of 5.9 per cent.Food inflation has outpaced the general inflation rate for 13 months in a row.
And while StatCan’s CPI tracks a representative basket of goods to show general trends in Canada, Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, says consumers might find their personal inflation rate is even higher if their diets are made up of the fresh foods and grains that are being hit particularly hard.
Read more: What's your personal inflation rate? Try our calculator to find out Read next: Windfall tax on large Canadian companies needed to recover public funds: report “I suspect a lot of people are saying, ‘Well, 10.4 per cent is unbelievable.