Just over a quarter of Canadian households have bought fewer fruits and vegetables over the last year as prices climbed, a national poll shows.
And two-thirds of respondents said they had decided not to buy a specific fruit or vegetable in the last year because of higher prices. The most common produce item that people said they had left on the shelf was cauliflower, followed by broccoli and lettuce.
READ MORE: Reality check: Who is to blame for the soaring cost of cauliflower?
Cauliflower prices got attention last winter when they soared to $8 a head.
Nearly half of the respondents said they had at least considered buying frozen vegetables as the price of fresh vegetables rose.
Lower-income families were more likely to cut back on fresh fruit and vegetables as prices rose over the last year, the survey showed.
Rising vegetable prices are often blamed on the drought in California, and on exchange rates – grocers have to buy produce from abroad in U.S. dollars, whether it’s from the United States itself or from Latin America.
READ MORE: After California: What the state’s water crisis means for Canada’s food security
The survey was released Monday by the University of Guelph and Dalhousie University.
Prepare to budget even more for groceries. The cost of fruits and vegetables is expected to climb even more than it already has – driven by that ongoing drought in California. Geoff Hastings reports.
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