Rising food prices packing punch on grocery bills, upping demand for hampers

Rising food prices are packing a punch on grocery bills, and soon Russia’s invasion in Ukraine could further impact Manitobans' kitchen tables.

February was a record-breaking month for Harvest Manitoba. In February – they gave out 12,000 hampers.

Meaghan Erbus, the director of network, advocacy and education at Harvest Manitoba, said people are needing more help than ever before.

“Over the past month, we saw a record high of 12,000 hampers needing to be provided over to the community which is a record high for what we have seen month to month this past year,” Erbus said in an interview with CTV News Winnipeg.

For the past two years, food banks have been seeing an increase in need, including at Agape Table. Jim Steep said this has been especially busy.

“(There is) just a rise in everything,” Steep said. “More people just phoning for hampers that are in need. It could be the cost of living keeps going up. People can’t afford to buy all the things that they need."

Erbus said the rising cost of food is leading more households to turn to Harvest Manitoba for help.

‘’It’s because of the increase in inflation,” she said. “So the more things are costing and it’s really everything food, gas, all things, that really affects people, especially ones that have a limited income.”

Erbus is expecting the high need to continue.

“That means it fits into all the things we consume, which is just about everything that contains either corn, wheat, or oil of some sort. On top of that, livestock is grain-fed.”

A supply chain management professor at the University of Manitoba, Barry Prentice said soon Manitobans' grocery bill will be impacted by gas and grain import difficulties from both Ukraine and Russia.

He said he expects groceries to be impacted for the next two years.

“I would say we are just in a period of generally rising prices and this is one of them,” Prentice said. “But typically, these things do have a cycle and they will come back down again. We just don’t know how that landing will be.”