Food professor warns grocery shoppers of ‘shelflation’

According to Charlebois, there are five food products that haven’t fallen victim to inflation in the past decade: peanut butter, tofu, bananas, sugar, and flour.

CITYnews halifax \ Stephen Wentzell

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You’ve heard about shrinkflation. What about shelflation?

For Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the agri-food and analytics lab at Dalhousie University, it’s another factor for shoppers to consider when it comes to grocery shopping.

Charlebois explained in a recent op-ed that while “all food products have an intended shelf life, challenges along the supply chain [including blockades] will compromise a product’s shelf life at the point of purchase, especially for perishables.”

Charlebois tells CityNews that shelflation is a “concept that has been around for a long time, but it’s never been labelled.”

“When the supply chain doesn’t work as well, the shelf life of products will be severely compromised,” he explained. “As products reach markets, they tend to be not as fresh as they used to, and they get spoiled. If you’re a consumer, and you have to throw away food, it’s costing you more, which is why it’s called shelf ration.”

The op-ed, published in many daily newspapers across the country including The Chronicle Herald, noted that a recent poll by Dalhousie University and the app Caddle, found that 41 per cent of Canadians threw away milk in the past year “because it went sour before its due date.” To make matters worse, “38.5 per cent of respondents have done it at least twice, and for 22.8 per cent, three to five times.”

According to Charlebois, there are five food products that haven’t fallen victim to inflation in the past decade: peanut butter, tofu, bananas, sugar, and flour.

He also noted the latest food inflation numbers coming from Ottawa, at a whopping 6.5 per cent.

“The last time we actually had a high inflation rate like that was in 2009,” Charlebois said. “Lady Gaga’s Poker Face was number one at the time.”