Bulk buying, couponing and urban farming: 3 ways of fighting high food prices

With food prices in Canada on the rise, some Canadians and community organizations say tactics to help cut the cost of their grocery bills are all the more essential.

Those tactics are being further tested by inflation, with food prices up 3.9 per cent from where it was a year ago.

Over the past 12 months, prices for meat products spiked by almost 10 per cent, with seafood, dairy, eggs also seeing significant increases. Edible oils and fats, like olive oil, canola oil and margarine, are up 18.5 per cent.

High food prices especially hurt those with low income — a disproportionate number of whom are Black, Indigenous or people of colour, said Zsofia Mendly-Zambo, a PhD candidate at York University in Toronto who specializes in health policy and equity.

Faced with other rising costs for fixed expenses like housing, child care or transportation, people try to cut costs on what they eat, she said, because "food is the thing that we can squeeze the most." 

 A recent online survey by the non-profit Angus Reid Institute found that 45 per cent of respondents said they currently find it either difficult or very difficult to feed their household, while another from Dalhousie University found 40 per cent of those surveyed have changed their behaviour this year to save money at the grocery store.

Bulk buying, couponing and urban farming are three ways of fighting high food prices commonly used by community organizations and individuals.

And while cost-cutting tactics can't solve the problem of hunger and poverty, Mendly-Zambo said, they can help people stretch their food dollars.

Adwoa Toku says the best way she's found to cut her food costs is simply to grow her own.

This spring, Toku, 27, and her roommates planted a garden at their rental home just west of downtown Toronto. "I would say this is probably the healthiest I've been eating in my entire life — but also the cheapest as well."

Toku, who is vegan, works for a community farm in north Toronto, so she has a decent understanding of agriculture. But this year is the first time she's farmed for herself. 

Her crops included collard greens, herbs, peppers, tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and callaloo, a fast-growing, tall, leafy green.

She and her roommates had such good harvests, Toku said, they shared food with friends, who then became inspired to start growing produce of their own — even on balconies. Toku says all of them wanted to save money on food after seeing her cut her grocery bills down to as low as $20 a week during the summer.

Growing food makes it possible for Toku to live in the city, pay her bills, keep up student-loan payments and even save some money, she said.