Guess what? Grocery rut. Guess why? Chicken thigh.
Canada’s inflation rate might have eased last month, but your grocery bill likely hasn’t. Statistics Canada’s newest consumer price index (CPI) numbers show overall inflation eased to 2.8 per cent in June as gas prices decelerated, but prices for some grocery items still went up.
The worst month-over-month offender was chicken thighs. Prices for fresh or frozen thighs jumped 8.2 per cent from May to June, according to the CPI — far above the monthly increases for the usual offenders like beef and coffee — while year on year, prices jumped 13.6 per cent compared to last June.
At the same time, prices for other grocery items that had been giving Canadians sticker shock of late — like cucumbers, tomatoes, and grapes — all dropped from May to June.
Canada’s inflation rate eased to 2.8% in June thanks to lower gas prices
On Tuesday, a club pack of nine boneless, skinless chicken thighs cost $22.18, or $20.92 per kilogram, at a Loblaws in Toronto, according to its website.
A Walmart in North Vancouver was selling a value pack of Lillydale boneless, skinless chicken thighs for $22.48, or $18 per kilogram. And a pack of Our Compliments boneless, skinless chicken thighs was going for $20.92 per kilogram at a Halifax Sobeys.
The price of chicken mostly comes down to demand, explains Michael von Massow, a food agriculture professor at Ontario’s University of Guelph.
Proteins in general are getting more expensive, so people are “trading down,” he said.
Chicken still doesn’t cost as much as beef, and chicken thighs still tend to be less expensive than breasts.
Any change in demand affects the price because there are only so many chicken thighs to go around, von Massow added, and only two per bird.
“You can’t snap your fingers and have more chicken.”
Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri‑Food Analytics Lab in Halifax, told CBC News he agrees that expensive beef is pushing consumers toward chicken thighs as a more affordable protein alternative.
And it’s not just thighs — nearly every part of the chicken except for breasts is getting more expensive, he added. While breast prices dropped 0.7 per cent from May to June, according to Statistics Canada, drumsticks went up 1.8 per cent.
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That said, breasts are still the most expensive part of the chicken, according to Statistics Canada’s most recent retail data from May, at an average $14.58 per kilogram. Thighs were an average $13.72 per kilogram, and drumsticks were $7.29 per kilogram in May according to Statistics Canada.
Beef, by comparison, ranged from $16.07 per kilogram in May for ground beef to $35.30 per kilogram for striploin cuts, according to Statistics Canada.
“The chicken industry is under tremendous pressure because of the amped demand created by beef prices and people are looking for cheaper proteins at the meat counter,” Charlebois said.
That said, Charlebois says he was seeing prices were already starting to drop in June.
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First beef, now chicken. In the Maritimes, haddock prices have shot up. At the same time, demand for milk-based proteins like cottage cheese and Greek yogurt is soaring, and there’s a shortage of whey protein.
It may feel like there’s no affordable protein left. But von Massow says chicken supply will eventually adjust to demand.
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There’s also the option of plant-based proteins, he said, but noted you need more time to prepare beans and lentils — it’s not as easy as throwing a pack of chicken thighs on the grill. And Canadians don’t seem as resilient to changing their diets as they were a few decades ago thanks to a decline in food and cooking skills, von Massow added.
Plus, people have strong preferences.
“Beef went up a whole bunch, and people maybe switched to ground beef, but they still stuck with beef,” von Massow said.
“In fact, we ate more beef last year than we did the year before.”
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