Cost of the Revised Northern Food Basket in 2022-2023

Overview

The tables below present the estimated cost of the Revised Northern Food Basket (RNFB) for communities eligible under the Nutrition North Canada (NNC) program. The RNFB represents the estimated weekly cost of a nutritious diet for a reference family of four.

During the 2022–23 fiscal year, northern food systems continued to experience elevated costs driven by transportation challenges, supply chain disruptions, labour constraints, and broader inflationary pressures affecting food and fuel prices. While the most acute impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic had eased relative to earlier years, volatility in freight logistics and operating costs continued to influence food prices in many northern communities.

Following recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), the Nutrition North Canada program implemented major upgrades to its pricing data collection framework. These changes substantially expanded both the number of data fields and the volume of pricing records submitted by retailers, increasing the breadth and detail of pricing information available to the program. The expanded data structure required significant enhancements to internal systems used to map products and calculate Revised Northern Food Basket (RNFB) costs, including improvements to the treatment of missing prices through the automation of established substitution rules without manual adjustment. While these upgrades strengthened data quality, consistency, and analytical capacity, their implementation required extensive system redevelopment and testing, which temporarily affected operations and contributed to delays in the publication of RNFB cost estimates.

In 2022–23 fiscal year, 123 communities were eligible for the NNC subsidy program, including 115 fully eligible and 8 seasonally eligible communities. RNFB costs are reported only for communities where sufficient and reliable pricing data were available.

To support longer-term trend analysis, this report includes RNFB cost estimates from March 2011 alongside results from the most recently completed fiscal year. While RNFB costs are typically compared on a March-to-March basis, the 2022–23 analysis compares April 2022 to March 2023. This adjustment reflects major upgrades to pricing data collection and internal systems implemented in April 2022, including updated product mapping. As a result, the 2022–23 analysis compares April 2022 to March 2023 instead of the usual March-to-March comparison, to ensure that RNFB costs are assessed using pricing data collected consistently under the updated methodology introduced in April 2022.

In communities eligible for the full retail subsidy under Nutrition North Canada, the average cost of the Revised Northern Food Basket (RNFB) increased by $58 (11.7%) between April 2022 and March 2023. Compared with March 2011, the average RNFB cost in March 2023 was $125 (29.2%) higher. Over the same periods, Statistics Canada reported an 8.9% increase in food prices purchased from stores elsewhere in Canada and a cumulative increase of 37% since 2011. Overall, 20 of the 123 eligible communities recorded an RNFB growth rate lower than the 8.9% Consumer Price Index increase for food purchased outside the program over the same period.

Context

• The Revised Northern Food Basket (RNFB) reflects the cost of a standardized nutritious food basket for a reference family of four. It does not capture all food purchasing behaviours, traditional food harvesting, or household-specific dietary preferences.
• The cost of the RNFB is calculated using food price data submitted by retailers registered with the Nutrition North Canada (NNC) program that operate physical stores in eligible communities.
• For the 2022–23 fiscal year only, RNFB costs were calculated using pricing data provided by the North West Company only. Following recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), significant upgrades were implemented to pricing data collection processes, including enhancements to NNC internal systems and retailer data submission requirements. The implementation of these upgrades required several months and resulted in delays in the receipt of pricing data from multiple retailers. The North West Company was able to provide revised and backdated pricing data that met program requirements for the full 2022–23 fiscal year, allowing RNFB costs to be calculated for eligible communities where it operates.
• As pricing data for this fiscal year were submitted retroactively rather than through regular monthly submissions, RNFB cost estimates for 2022–23 may not reflect the same level of precision as estimates derived from continuous monthly reporting. However, the upgraded pricing data submission framework captured a substantially higher number of products and pricing records, increasing the breadth of pricing information available for RNFB calculations.
• Pricing data from Arctic Co-operatives Limited were integrated into the RNFB calculation system during the 2023–24 fiscal year and had not been part of the RNFB prior to 2023-24 due to data quality concerns.
• Pricing data from the Fédération des coopératives du Nouveau Québec were incorporated into RNFB calculations in early 2024–25 and had been part of the RNFB prior to 2022-23.
• The Annual Price Submission Coverage percentage presented in the table reflects the proportion of RNFB item prices derived directly from retailer-submitted pricing data rather than from estimated substitute prices. When an RNFB item price was unavailable for a given month in a community, an estimated price was generated using an established internal substitute price methodology. Annual Price Submission Coverage was calculated for each period and retailer. The presented Annual Price Submission Coverage percentage represents the average of the monthly coverage percentages for each community over the year.
• RNFB costs are not reported for communities where:
  • no local retailers are registered with the NNC program and stores access the subsidy through eligible suppliers; or
  • price data provided could not be used consistently or accurately to calculate RNFB costs; or
  • the community is classified as seasonal and pricing data are available only during limited periods of the year.
• In the 2022–23 fiscal year, a total of 123 communities were eligible for the Nutrition North Canada subsidy program, of which 115 communities (93%) were fully eligible and 8 communities (7%) were seasonally eligible.
• Seasonally eligible communities qualify for the Nutrition North Canada subsidy only during certain times of the year, typically due to seasonal variations in transportation availability.
• "n/a" indicates that no reliable or sufficient pricing data were available for the community.

National Average