If you live in Melfort, Sask., it’s cheaper not to be extremely fond of brown rice and potatoes, but otherwise your food costs for a basket of basic foods are below the average for the rest of Canada.
If you live in Brooks, Alta., your food costs are the highest among all prairie locations examined in a recent survey. You pay more on average than people in Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton and Grande Prairie.
As for folks in Brandon, you pay more than average for cheddar cheese, whole wheat pasta, potatoes and peanut butter – and more than the folks living in Thompson, Man., on average- but less than people in Winnipeg.
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These are some of the statistics shown in the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada’s recently released study of food prices across the country.
More details and opinions about it appear in the editorial on the opposite page, and the complete results and dandy maps are on-line at www.heartandstroke.com.
To discover more about food costs, the foundation conscripted volunteer shoppers in 66 communities last October to buy a list of nutritious foods at a national or regional grocery chain in their community.
On the shopping list, in specific amounts deemed suitable for feeding a family of four for one week, were apples, potatoes, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, one percent milk, cheddar cheese, lean ground beef, peanut butter and 48 other grocery items.
Of the 15 communities surveyed on the Prairies, Melfort had the cheapest food, at $193.42 for the basket. Edmonton was next at $199.69. As mentioned earlier, Brooks was most expensive of prairie towns and cities surveyed, at $269.70, according to heart foundation figures.
There are probably many reasons for different prices in different communities. Some are obvious: it takes a lot of expense, time and effort to get apples to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut ($7.64 for six medium) but you can get them for $1 in Toronto.
Some price differences seem inexplicable, such as the price of whole wheat pasta at $7.90 in Regina and $8.14 in Swift Current, both in a province where so much of the durum used to make the end product is grown.
Yet the same amount of pasta costs $3.29 in Saskatoon, $3.39 in Yellowknife and $4 in Digby, N.S.
Ottawa is the most expensive place to buy lean ground beef ($13.21 per kilogram.) It’s $8.98 in Cowtown but cheapest in Timmins, Ont., at $4.14 per kg.
Length of the food chain varies widely based on geography, transportation, processing and marketing. The study is an interesting way to call attention to it.
