The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) has calculated that by Tuesday, February 8th, 2022, a Canadian household of average income will have earned enough to pay for their entire year’s grocery bill.

Each year, CFA examines the proportion of income that Canadians spend on food as a way to explore year-over-year expenditure changes and raise consumers’ understanding of Canada’s food system, from Farm-Gate-to-Plate.

Canadians spent 10.7% of their disposable income on food in 2021, which is slightly lower than the 11% of disposable income spent on food in 2020. Due to this, Food Freedom Day is now one day earlier, landing on February 8th, 2022.

Food Freedom Day falling on an earlier date than the previous year will likely come as a surprise to many, especially in the light of rising food prices and overall inflation. While Canada’s food system continues to provide access to affordable food by global standards, the pandemic has affected Canadian households in drastically different ways depending on their vocation, location and a wide variety of other factors.

For some, disposable incomes have increased throughout the pandemic, particularly for those who had no disruptions to their livelihoods coupled with a lack of spending opportunities. Others have seen large drops in their disposable income due to shut-downs in their industries.

These different realities are apparent when looking at the different quintiles of income by Canadian household in Canada to show the percentage of disposable income that they spent on food over the year. The graph below presents this information.

As can be seen in the graph above, there is a large difference between how much disposable income households in the lowest income quintile (21.3%) and the highest income quintile (5.1%) spent on food and beverages throughout the year. It should also be noted that food and beverage costs are fairly rigid. Those households in the highest income quintile only spent 30 per cent more on food and beverages than the lowest income quintile, despite having almost 600 per cent more disposable income.

Source:  Canadian Federation of Agriculture February 8, 2022 news release