Food prices in Yellowknife are no longer skyrocketing in quite the way they did for much of 2022 and 2023, new data suggests.
Over the past month, food prices assessed by Statistics Canada fell slightly in the territorial capital according to consumer price index data released on Tuesday. (Yellowknife is the only NWT community whose prices are regularly assessed in this way.)
While food prices still rose by 6.6 percent over the past year as a whole, that figure is down from a 10.2-percent increase over the 12 months prior to that.
As a whole, food costs assessed as part of the consumer price index haven’t meaningfully risen in the city since September last year.
If a sample grocery bill cost $200 in January 2022, it would have cost $220 by January 2023 according to Statistics Canada’s data, then $234.58 by September last year.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
In January 2024, that grocery bill would have been $234.97 – around 40 cents more expensive than in September, but nothing like as dramatic a leap as had been seen in previous periods.
On Tuesday, the NWT Bureau of Statistics said the prices of dairy, eggs, meat and fruit had continued to rise by more than eight percent over the past 12 months. The increase for vegetables, baked goods and cereals was lower.
Overall, Yellowknife recorded a 0.4-percent increase across all prices (including the likes of energy, health, shelter and transportation) compared to December, and a 2.8-percent increase in the 12 months since January 2023, as inflation continues to ease.
The same picture emerges nationwide: Canada’s overall year-on-year inflation rate is 2.9 percent, Edmonton and Iqaluit recorded inflation rates of three percent, and Whitehorse posted 2.6 percent.
