Ottawa grocery shoppers still feeling the pinch despite inflation rate cooling

Many shoppers in Ottawa say grocery prices continue to be a big hit to their wallet and are skeptical of claims that food price increases are easing.

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On Tuesday, the Bank of Canada announced that Canada's February inflation figures came in softer than expected for a second consecutive month, at 2.8 per cent.

"This is good news," says Ian Lee, a business professor at Carleton University. "Unexpected good news. Forecasters thought it was going to go up slightly. In fact, it's down partly because of food prices."

Grocery prices in February were up 2.4 per cent from a year ago, marking the first time prices prices rose more slowly than overall inflation since October 2021.

Brian Clarke did some shopping Tuesday and says when he heard the new statistics he, "sort of snickered."

"I'm out here every day," he said.

"I’m going to look at some vegetables today. I want to see if the prices are down. And I know they won't be. But I'm just hoping maybe there's something a little less expensive than normal."

Another shopper, Carmen Marson agrees.

"Everything from the basics that you need in your home to meat, which is astronomical, it's just getting harder and harder every day," Marson said.

Marson says she spends more than $300 a week on food to feed her family of four.

"It's as simple as that. Inflation is impacting everything we do, period."

Grocery shoppers continue to pay significantly higher prices for food than they did a few years ago. The Bank of Canada says grocery prices increased 21.6 per cent between February 2021 and February 2024.

"I think it's important to say that we expected prices to ease a little, but it's important to know the prices are still going up – they're just not going up as fast than they were before," said Mike Von Massow, a food economist at the University of Guelph.

"We're getting more into the level of food inflation that we're used to and that will be reflected in our cost of living increases as we see our salaries change."

Von Massow says a sharp decrease in food prices is unlikely

"We rarely see significant price deflation, but I think we'll see some things get cheaper as we get into the summer, particularly plenty of fruits and vegetables as we get into the production season. So I think there's some hope that we'll see some lower prices as long as we don't have any drought or things like that in Canadian production."

Ian Lee says the numbers could point to what the Bank of Canada does next.

"I think this suggests, or points to an increased probability of an interest rate decline in June of this year, which is just around the corner."

With files from The Canadian Press