From Toronto's Financial Post, December 15:
Measures of core inflation showed signs of cooling for the first time in months
Food prices rose at the fastest rate since December 2023 last month, even as Canada’s headline inflation rate held steady at 2.2 per cent for the month, Statistics Canada said on Monday.
The price of food purchased in stores rose by 4.7 per cent year-over-year in November, up from 3.4 per cent a month earlier. Prices for fresh and frozen beef were up 17.7 per cent from the year before and coffee was up 27.8 per cent. The higher beef prices were driven in part by a low herd size in North America, while price pressures on coffee have been driven by a combination of bad weather conditions and U.S. tariffs on coffee-producing countries.
“Higher grocery inflation was mostly a product of supply disruptions,” said Royal Bank of Canada senior economist Claire Fan, in a note. “Severe drought in parts of Western Canada in earlier years has thinned of the size of cattle herd in Canada, while dry weather in Brazil and Vietnam curbed coffee production and exports to the world.”
The continued pressure on food prices came as overall inflation held steady, and while measures of core inflation showed signs of cooling for the first time in months....
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