Your holiday budget may need to branch out this year if you intend to purchase a fresh Christmas tree.
According to some industry experts in the Peterborough, Ont., area, prices are higher due to inflation coupled with diminishing supply. For example, at Peterborough Landscape Supply, owner John Walsh said this year it is costing him double the price to stock some of his larger Nova Scotia Balsam Fir Christmas trees.
Typically, he said, a tree will cost between $10 to $20 more compared with last year at the Keene Road business in Peterborough.
“Some of it has got to do with transportation,” Walsh said. “The shipping costs have gone up, the freight charges of course, and just the growing costs have gone up in general.”
At the Oake Family Tree Farm on Sherbrooke Street in Cavan-Monaghan Township, just west of Peterborough, the cost of Christmas trees has increased an additional $5. The farm offers pre-cut Balsam fir and Fraser fir trees at $80 each or cut your own for $75.
Renee Oake said inflation is impacting prices at the family business.
“Everything costs more, even minimum wage,” she said. “We have kids come out to prune the trees and that’s gone up.”
David Oake said plans for increasing the price even higher got nixed by his father Carl.
“I was of the mindset that we should really increase the price — just based on the simple economics of it — the supply and demand,” he said. “But my father refuses to do so.”
According to a Statistics Canada report released in December 2022, Canada in 2021 exported over 2.4 million Christmas trees. The biggest customer — at 97 per cent — was the United States, with the bulk going to northern states.
Walsh noted his tree grower restricted quantities to some suppliers this year as competition grows.
“Basically, what’s happened is a lot of the big corporations have come in and bought out the family tree farms,” he said. “And they’re selling all the trees to the U.S. because they’re selling them for the same price that we would pay, but in U.S. dollars.”
Walsh also said there are concerns Canada’s Christmas tree harvesters are declining. Ontario in 2021 led all provinces with 418 farms. Across Canada, 1,364 farms grew Christmas trees for sale in 2021.
“A lot of the older guys just can’t do it themselves anymore,” Walsh said. “The kids don’t want to do it because it really is labour-intensive. And then they only get paid once a year. ”
David agrees it’s an “old type” of business.
“You can’t just start one and make money that year,” he said. “It’s five or 10 years before the trees come to fruition.”
However, both farms say fresh trees continue to be on holiday wish lists — higher prices included.
“We’ve already sold more trees than we ever have by this time,” Walsh said. “People have been calling for the last month, ‘When are your trees coming? When are your trees coming?'”
Added Renee: “We might run out.”
— with files from Germain Ma/Global News Peterborough