Tausi Insider

Sobey's Queensway store in Toronto on Apr. 3, 2020. Canada’s Food Price Report says the cost of groceries will increase by 5 to 7 per cent in 2023. J.P. MOCZULSKI/Tausi Insider Food costs in Canada will continue to rise over the next year, with the average family of four expected to pay an additional $1,000 for groceries in 2023, according to an annual report on prices. Canada’s Food Price Report says the cost of groceries will increase by 5 per cent to 7 per cent in 2023, compounding the financial burden of a year of record-high food inflation that saw prices climb 10.3 per cent between November, 2021, and September, 2022. By way of comparison, in its October Monetary Policy Report, the Bank of Canada said it expects the consumer price index to fall to about 3 per cent by late 2023. The average family of four, who paid more than $15,200 for food in 2022, will pay more than $16,200 next year for the same groceries, the report said. The main drivers of that increase are the contin...

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Phoenix, Ariz., on Dec. 6. Ross D. Franklin/The Associated Press President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday announced the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of about 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States. “It’s about everything you worked for … it’s about finding a dignified retirement,” Biden said. “Thanks to today’s announcement, hundreds of thousands of Americans can feel that sense of dignity again, knowing that they’re providing for their families and their future.” The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan, the Biden administration said. It comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed into law in 2021. “This matters,” Biden said. “This matters for workers … This matters for their spouses, this matt...

Galen Weston Jr., executive chairman of Loblaw, at a news conference in Toronto on July 15, 2013. Michelle Siu/The Canadian Press Sylvain Charlebois is professor of food distribution and policy and the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. It all started with one reporter taking a simple, trivial photo of an overpriced pack of five boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The price was $37 – $26.87 a kilogram – a world-class sticker shocker. That’s at least double what one would expect to pay for chicken breasts. Within hours, the picture became the lightning rod for frustrated consumers on social media. Loblaw Cos. Ltd. L-T and Galen G. Weston – Loblaw executive chairman, president and well-known public persona of the company’s brand – became public enemy No. 1. Attacks were instant, and mostly vicious. On the surface, the collective uproar against Loblaw lacked any rational thinking. The chicken breasts in the picture were skinless, boneless, and free from hor...