No end in sight to rising food prices: expert

From the meat coolers, to the produce section, to the dairy aisle, every trip to the grocery store is costing a little bit more.

"I've never seen price increase like this in the last six months to a year,” said Scott Clements, owner of Dakota Family Foods for amost 20 years.

Clements said price changes have gone from a weekly task --- to a near daily chore in most departments.

"It's not just one category, one product. It's right across the board in the grocery business."

Clements said more customers than ever are looking for specials. And for some shoppers, looking for deals has become a weekly adventure.

"We try to get like, some comparisons between different stores, and then like, according to flyers,” Winnipeg resident Sophia Wong said outside Dakota Family Foods. “Actually, we look at this from Facebook, so we know there some deals." 

Sophia Wong uses her days off to bargain hunt --- travelling from store-to-store. She said the little extra effort pays off.

"If we do visit a couple different stores, we can save like 20 bucks,” Wong said.

Sylvain Charlebois, director of Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said there is no relief in sight, and prices are expected to rise even higher in some departments.

"Going into the fall, we believe dairy will remain a challenge for many families because of this new announced hike by the Canadian Dairy Commission," Charlebois told CTV News.

Milk prices are set to jump about two-and-a-half per cent on September 1st.

Charlebois said that hike will actually look more like seven-to-ten per cent for consumers.

Food inflation in May hit 9.7 per cent, and Charlebois said June’s numbers will likely top that.

"We may go over 10 percent for the food inflation rate. But we are expecting food prices to continue to increase but the pace will likely slow down."

Sophia Wong said another increase could mean a tighter grocery budget for her family.

Statistics Canada will unveil June’s Consumer Price Index on July 20th.