A professor and researcher in food distribution and policy says Newfoundland and Labrador is experiencing some of the highest food inflation rates in the country.
Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, says all provinces east of Ontario have been hard-hit by food inflation over the last 18 months, but Newfoundland and Labrador in particular.
“There’s something going on in Newfoundland for sure,” says Charlebois.
The federal government is courting international grocers to introduce more competition in the Canadian market and bring prices down, but he doesn’t think the business model exists.
Charlebois says the issue may not be the grocers, but the suppliers.
“I think the real problem is upstream, between grocers and suppliers,” says Charlebois. He believes the emphasis should be on processors, and “more suppliers will give more choices,” adding there are too few suppliers with too much power.
He believes Ottawa needs to introduce a code of conduct in the grocery industry.
He says Loblaws and Walmart in particular are exercising too much power, “so if you actually suppress that power, and create a level playing field by imposing a code of conduct, you actually protect processing,” and that would stabilize prices, according to Charlebois.