Olive oil, pork shoulder, onions among items that have shot up in price the most in Canada since 2018

The prices of some food staples in Saskatchewan have been growing much faster than inflation, according to Statistics Canada.

Since October 2018, olive oil, onions, pork shoulder cuts, margarine and broccoli have all become more than 70 per cent more expensive.

Overall, the average price of the 106 food items tracked by Statistics Canada in Saskatchewan rose by 32 per cent in that same period.

Food prices have become a significant source of public concern in recent years. On Dec. 14, the federal government will implement a two-month pause on GST for certain food items.

"I have a nephew that's got six kids. It's just ridiculous, the amount that's gone up for them in the last few years," said Maggie Rex, a shopper in Regina. "I think [the costs] are horrific."

Hans Brommki, another Regina shopper, said he's been buying less food overall. The price of pork in particular has been a concern to him.

"I buy a lot less of it than I used to," he said.

Brommki said it's difficult to stay away from some of the skyrocketing fruits and vegetables.

"You've gotta eat them," he said. "It's hard to cut back on some of those things."

According to Michael von Massow, a professor in the department of food, agriculture and resource economics at the University of Guelph, there's no single factor to blame for the price increases.

"We've almost had this perfect storm of multiple things happening at the same time," he said. 

The primary drivers, however, are droughts in major food exporting countries, the continued war in Ukraine and a weaker Canadian dollar.

Canada imports a significant amount of its produce from the U.S., which makes it vulnerable to currency fluctuations.

"We're competing with other parts of the world for production in southern California, northern Mexico and across South America," said von Massow. "And we're paying for it with a weaker Canadian dollar." 

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Food prices are rising everywhere, including Saskatchewan. Here's what we know

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In 2025, food prices in Canada are predicted to rise by as much as five per cent, with Saskatchewan projected to fare slightly better.

The increase in the price of margarine, according to von Massow, illustrates how these broader geopolitical shifts interact with one another.

"Olive oil went through the roof because of very bad growing conditions in the Mediterranean basin, in Spain and in Italy," he said. "And so, we saw those prices go up. That was made worse by the fact that sunflower oil wasn't coming out of the Ukraine.

"Those products are substitutes. If there's less sunflower oil and less olive oil, all the oil prices go up. Margarine is a product of vegetable oil."

The price of olive oil has increased more than any other food product tracked by Statistics Canada — 119 per cent since October 2018.

Will Levirs runs three specialty olive oil stores on Vancouver Island. He has closely followed the droughts in southern Europe that began four years ago and agrees with von Massow that the volatile price of the product can be traced back to that drought.

"We used to always get olive oil from Tunisia, and very high grade olive oil," he said. "We haven't had any since the drought came on, so that's been four years. It's a global impact, but most of it is drought."

Canada also imports olive oil from the U.S. and several other countries in the southern hemisphere, but the impact of the European drought was so massive it couldn't be offset by other countries.

Levirs said the price of olive oil is likely to stop increasing, or even drop, in the years ahead, as European production has come back online.

According to Canada's Food Price Report, food prices in Saskatchewan rose by 2.8 per cent in 2024. They are projected to rise by a similar amount in 2025, which would be below the national average.