Podcast: How do you save money at the grocery store?
This podcast walks through different ways that you can make the most of your food budget in times of inflationary pressures. Shannon Crocker provides helpful hints that will allow you to be a sharper shopper, while also providing the nutrition you need for your family.
Shannon Crocker provides great take home messages about how your family can utilize more of your food budget, reducing waste and keeping your nutritional needs in check.
Some of these helpful tips include:
- Make an inventory of what you actually have in your house before you go grocery shopping.
- Create a meal plan for the week: this will help you buy only what you need.
- Always make a list of what to buy and stick to it!
- Consider high-protein products such as legumes and value pack meats.
- Canned or frozen veggies and fruits are the same level of nutrition as fresh, and sometimes even better.
- Don’t discount the discount rack. You can always freeze some of these products to use at a later date.
“Fertilizer prices have more than doubled in the last year. That’s a significant increase for every farmer here in this country to put on the nutrients that their crops need to grow the food that feeds Canadians and people worldwide.”
Clinton Monchuk
“When you shop, have a plan for the food that you buy. It’s great to just go and get your food, but it’s such a waste of money and resources that went into growing that food if you throw it out. So always have a plan for what you’re going to buy. If you buy those strawberries, are you going to be having them at breakfast? Were you planning to make a snack with them? Did you have a dessert going on that you were going to put them into? Or into your smoothies? Always know what you’re going to do with that food when you buy it. That helps ensure you’re not going to waste the food and the money that went into buying it.”
Shannon Crocker

Guest: Shannon Crocker MSC RD PHEc
Registered Dietitian & Professional Home Economist
Shannon Crocker is a food-loving registered dietitian and professional home economist with over 25 years of experience in nutrition communications.
As a skilled nutrition writer, enthusiastic media spokesperson and engaging presenter and facilitator she spends most of her days writing and talking about food and nutrition.
Shannon is sought after as an evidence-based strategist and content creator for farming and food industry clients and is the author of nutrition resources and dietitian training programs that are used across the country.
The kitchen is her happy place: she’s passionate about nutrition and food and how it has the potential to enhance life and connect you with others while fueling your body and mind.

Host: Clinton Monchuk
Grain & Egg Farmer
Clinton Monchuk grew up on a mixed dairy, beef and grain family farm outside of Lanigan, Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor’s of Science in Agriculture majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Saskatchewan and Masters of Business Administration in Agriculture from the University of Guelph. Clinton has enjoyed numerous roles across Canada, the United States and Mexico as a researcher, educator, manager, economist and director of trade policy.
In 2016, Clinton accepted the role of Executive Director with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan to promote farming and ranching to consumers. Clinton understands the value of increasing public trust in agriculture and actively promotes engagement between the agriculture industry and consumers.
Clinton, Laura and their children Jackson and Katelyn, are active partners on their family grain and layer farm in Saskatchewan and cattle ranch in Oklahoma.
Podcast Transcript
Clinton Monchuk: (00:07)
From Canadian Food Focus, this is Ask a Farmer. I’m your host Clinton Monchuk. A Saskatchewan farmer. In this podcast, we talk to food experts to answer your questions about your food.
Clinton Monchuk: (00:30)
We are very privileged today to have Shannon Crocker with us. We’re going be talking a little bit more about food inflation, and I know it’s something that’s kind of hit everybody, especially here in Canada in the last year and a half or so. We’re going to talk about some of the ways that people who are listening in can reduce some of the issues with inflation, food inflation. But before we get into that, I always want to make sure our listeners know a little bit more about who is on the podcast. So if you don’t mind, just give us a little bit of a rundown of yourself. Everybody needs to know more Shannon.
Shannon Crocker: (01:05)
More Shannon, okay. So as you said, I’m living in Ontario. I’m a registered dietitian, professional home economist. I’ve been working in nutrition communications for over 25 years now, , so quite a while. A lot of the work that I do Clinton, is with the food industry, with food commodities in particular. So as a nutrition communications consultant, I do a lot of nutrition strategy work. So I help my commodity clients to determine best messaging for sharing out with consumers or best strategy for sharing good nutrition messages about their foods. I do a lot of writing, so I spend a lot of time on my computer. I write articles, I write blogs, I create resources. I also spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So I do recipe development, recipe testing. I do a lot of video work. So part of creating communications is now more than ever videos. So I do a lot of video work and, social media for my clients. And then I’m also a spokesperson, so I’ll do television and radio shows, for example, sharing nutrition messages that I create with my clients out to consumers.
Clinton Monchuk: (02:17)
Thank you for talking about the food industry and making sure people have the proper nutrition here too. And this kind of gets into a little bit about what we’re going to be talking about. So just to throw some numbers, so I’m an economist by my background education. I took a lot of economics classes, which my wife and I don’t always see eye to eye in economics, but it is fun to have the table conversations about this. But one of the things that we’re seeing is food inflation. And this really kind of gets to where it hits consumers in their pocketbooks. So typically, you know, as an economist we look for inflationary kind of influences to be around 1 to 2%. So that’s, you know, everything that we purchase in a given year, 1 to 2% is kind of that average. Well, on the food side, in the last year and a half or so, we’ve been seeing food inflation around 10% plus for some months.
Clinton Monchuk: (03:10)
It’s slowly coming back down and stabilizing, but it’s put a lot of pressure on families and especially fixed income families. Then there’s a lot of other kind of socioeconomic things that come with that. We have increased use of food banks in, in some of the areas, the continuation of same salary rates or slight increases, but not quite keeping up to that food inflation. It draws us to talk a little bit more about what can we do as consumers to try and reign in some of that and how can we still eat healthy and maybe do it on a tighter budget. As we know with Canadian Food Focus, you have a few different articles that you’ve written, but maybe if we could start off with one of those articles was about eating well and saving money doing so. Maybe you could touch on some of your tips and your suggestions for everyday consumers to actually get the most out of their food dollar.
Shannon Crocker: (04:13)
Yeah, you know what, I think it’s tough for everyone. And like you mentioned, for people who are on a fixed income, it’s a really, really tough issue. You know, even myself going into the grocery store, you know, you see a cucumber for $3 and 59 cents, you have to think twice like, am I really going to buy that cucumber? So there’s lots of things that I can suggest around how people can save money on foods and still eat well. So it would be doing things like using frozen vegetables in place of fresh vegetables. You’re going to save quite a bit of money there. It could be using canned fish instead of fresh fish. So there’s lots of things like that. But also taking a step back, even before you’re taking a look at those foods, there’s some things that you can do. For example, always, you know, shop at home first before you hit the grocery store.
Shannon Crocker: (04:59)
Always make a list and then when you take that list, stick with it. Because oftentimes, you know, you get to the grocery store and there’s those great deals at the end of the aisle and you want to think, well, you know, hey, I’m going to buy that. But really it’s a promotion, not a food sale. You know, relying on canned vegetables and making meals out of things like canned tomatoes, right? They’re great meal starters. So I always have my pantry filled with things that are nutritious but also budget friendly. So thinking about those canned meal starters: canned legumes, canned tomatoes, canned fish, those are really going to be terrific budget friendly meal starters that are also going to give you that good nutrition that you need. Whole grains, you know, building meals around barley, for example, which is a great Canadian grain. It is so nutritious, packed with fiber that’s really good for gut health and for heart health. And also it is really budget friendly. One of the most budget friendly, friendly grains I would say that you can find in the grocery store. So there’s lots of little tips and tricks that you can use around the sort of your shopping habits and then also the foods that you buy and meals that you cook for your family.
Clinton Monchuk: (06:09)
Awesome. Those are really great tips. And you know, even in our own family, I, I like to make smoothies for the kids that are kind of packed full of fruits and some veggies in the morning with some milk. And I find that there’s always that aversion sometimes to say using a frozen vegetable or a frozen fruit. But just so we know, is there really much difference nutritionally between the two?
Shannon Crocker: (06:37)
Yeah, that’s an excellent question. So fresh and frozen as well as canned are actually really pretty much on par in terms of nutrition. In fact, sometimes frozen is even more nutritious than fresh because it’s picked, it’s flash frozen, so that locks all those nutrients in. Whereas, you know, sometimes you might bring a broccoli home and it sits in the fridge for a couple weeks or even a week maybe, then you use it, right? So as it sits there, the nutrients start to deteriorate a little bit. So sometimes that frozen is actually more nutritious than fresh. And so that’s a message I really try to get to people because it gives them permission to go ahead and rely on those frozen vegetables and canned if they’re, you typically recommend no added salt if you can because you can get good nutritional value and they’re time savers and they’re budget friendly.
Clinton Monchuk: (07:29)
I find one of the big savers too, when it comes to the frozen side is if it’s in my fridge too long, it starts, you know, growing legs and trying to walk away . So if I’m not going to make a smoothie for a couple weeks, it, you know, my strawberries are going to stay good in the freezer, right?
Shannon Crocker: (07:46)
Absolutely, and really frozen produce really helps with food waste and reducing food waste is a fantastic way to save money because when you throw that food out, not only are you missing out on good nutrition, but you’re throwing out money out the window basically, right? So yeah. Yeah, it’s great to be able to use that frozen produce which helps, you know, on many different levels.
Clinton Monchuk: (08:07)
One of the other tips when I was looking through your articles was kind of having an inventory of what you actually have to then go ahead and make your list and go forward. And I’ve done it numerous times where I buy something and then I put it in the freezer and it’s right beside what I already had a lot of, right? So what are some suggestions for making a good inventory and kind of planning out that process to make sure we can purchase smarter, I guess you could say in the grocery store?
Shannon Crocker: (08:36)
I think that when people hear that, they feel like they’ve got to have some sort of complicated list, right? Where they’re checking things off and matching things up and, truly it can be as simple as before you go to the store, look through your cupboards, look in the freezer or look in the fridge, what do you have? Shop there first. So plan your meals based on the inventory you already have in your kitchen because that’s a great way to save money and also save time. Then you’re not buying, like you said, something that you’ve already got that you do not need more of. . I think we’re all guilty of that. I know I certainly am. You could have a list, like I know a lot of people will have a list that sits on their freezer. I do this as recently I bought into a share of beef from a local farmer.
Shannon Crocker: (09:18)
You know, I have on the freezer door a list of, you know, how many packages of ground beef I have, how many packages of steak I have, what different steaks there are so that I can actually, and as I use them then I check them off so that I know what I’ve got. And because sometimes in the freezer too, especially right, things, you know, depending on the type of freezer you have, if you have a chest freezer, things can be buried underneath there. So having a list on the freezer is really helpful. And same thing on the cupboard or in the fridge. One of the things that’s related to that that I like to do is I like to put on food a little sticker that says ‘Eat me first’ or put it on the side on the front of the fridge that says, here are the leftovers that are in the fridge, please eat them, right?
Shannon Crocker: (10:01)
Because you know, my teenage and early adult kids will be more likely to just sort of go and make something instead of saying like, look at, please eat this, this has to go. And I’ll put it in order of like, this has to be eaten first. Organizing your fridge around that too, or your cupboard can be good. So you put the food at the front of the fridge that needs to be eaten first or in the front of the cupboard that has those best before dates. Those go to the front of the fridge or the cupboard and the other foods go to the back when you buy them. You know, sort of shift your stacking of foods in that way as well. So the inventory helps. And then also making sure that as you’re bringing in new food, you sort of do that little rotation so that the food that needs to get eaten first goes to the front.
Clinton Monchuk: (10:41)
That would’ve helped with my strawberries that were growing their winter coats.
Shannon Crocker: (10:47)
See those strawberries, right? Like you have frozen those strawberries before they started to grow that coat
Clinton Monchuk: (10:51)
I know, I know. And usually that, that’s the suggestion, a day too late, right?
Shannon Crocker: (10:57)
Definitely. And berries go bad or spoil fairly quickly. So when you shop, have a plan for the food that you shop. So it’s great to just go and get your food, but it’s such a waste of money and resources that went into growing that food if you throw it out to not then use it. So always have a plan for what you’re going to buy if you buy those strawberries. Like are you going to be having them at breakfast? Were you planning to make a snack with them? Did you have a dessert going on that you were going to be using them in or putting them into your smoothies? Always have a plan or know what you’re going to do with that food when you buy it. And that helps to ensure that you’re not going to waste the food and the money that went into buying.
Clinton Monchuk: (11:37)
I don’t do that, I’ll be honest with you, but my wife does and it is amazing how much more utilization of food we have. There’s less waste in our fridge, there’s better cooked meals because she, you know, she’ll buy different cuts of something than that’ll be earmarked for this meal. Right? And so we’re talking a little bit about making lists and making sure you have the good idea of the inventory that you have in your own household now you get to the grocery store. So what are some of the strategies around that to help you keep focused?
Shannon Crocker: (12:10)
You know, definitely you want to stick with your list, right? Avoid those promotional sales that you see at the end of the aisle. They’re really meant to lure you in to buy and they’re not always a great value for sure. Also, when you’ve got that list, use it to work your way through the grocery store. Check out those generic brands because they’re always going to be a better price likely. And also one of the things that you can do is take your flyers or your grocery store online apps and take those to the grocery store. And actually some grocery stores will price match as well. So it might take a little bit more effort, but it could be worth it. You could save quite a bit of money if the grocery store will price match. So you can compare your prices and check out those online flyers as well.
Clinton Monchuk: (12:54)
So I know sometimes when I go into the grocery store you see those reduced price produce or some cereals or breads or whatever it happens to be, meats. What’s your advice around that? Sometimes I’m a little like, should I actually purchase this or not?
Shannon Crocker: (13:12)
I love the reduced rack! I always go to the reduced rack first and especially for the vegetables and fruits because there’s always great deals and especially if you shop at the end of the day, that’s when I find that they put more of the stuff in or first thing in the morning that’s been there, you know, packed on from the night before. You can get amazing deals on produce, you know, you can get a dozen apples, bunch of potatoes, they put so many great deals on there. The thing is that most of them are fairly close to needing to be eaten quickly. So if you’re going to buy them, have a plan for what you’re going to make. So let’s say I go into the grocery store, I hit the rack, I had already planned to buy broccoli, but I see that cauliflower on the rack for sale.
Shannon Crocker: (13:54)
What I’ll probably do is buy the cauliflower instead of the broccoli and then have a plan before I take that home so that I know what I’m going to be doing. The reduced breads, I always check that out as well and I put those in the freezer. So even if it’s, you know, right at its best before date its still got some extension there that it’s going to be good for, but if I’m not planning on using it, I’ll put it in the freezer and use it for another time. So I think shopping the reduced rack is always a great plan if you know what you’re going to do with those foods when you get them home.
Clinton Monchuk: (14:25)
So how would you handle the value packs? Some of these value packs? You know, the typical family has two kids, so there’s, there’s four of you in the family and you know, some of these value packs are one or two kgs of protein, whether it’s chicken or beef.
Shannon Crocker: (14:38)
Yeah. So first the value packs can definitely be a good way to save money, but it’s only a value or it’s only a good buy if you actually then eat the food. If you throw it out, it was not a good buy. So when you buy those value packs, what I suggest is opening it up when you get home before you do anything, like as you’re putting your groceries away and then divide it up into meal portions and freeze what you’re not going to use. So say you’ve got a big package of, you know, you bought a bunch of turkey thighs, so you’ve got your plan, you know what you’re going to use, but if you don’t have a plan, but let’s say it was a fantastic deal at the grocery store, bring it home, put it in the freezer until you can use it and then of course add it to your inventory list so that you know that it’s in the freezer.
Shannon Crocker: (15:20)
That’s really important you know, have a plan for those value packs, take advantage of them because oftentimes too they’ll go on sale. So I always watch for those sales and then make sure that you, you know, portion them up and freeze what you’re not going to use right away. It works really well. You know, a lot of people shop at those big box stores. I was in Costco the other day and you know, you see people coming out with like giant jars of pickles, and olives and all sorts of things. And I think first of all, how big is your fridge? Second of all, what are you going to do with all that food? I’m sure a lot of it goes to waste. You know, those, they might look like great deals, but again, if you’re not going to use them, they’re not a great deal.
Clinton Monchuk: (15:58)
Kind of getting back to the economics around why this is happening and there’s a few different issues that have all jumbled together to cause this perfect storm of food inflation that we’re seeing. Maybe you can talk a little bit about as a post-covid kind of situation, how were some of those, you know, effects that the food industry actually had? How did those cause some of those inflationary increases that were seeing from your perspective?
Shannon Crocker: (16:31)
You know, I think there’s a, a lot of different things that have gone into obviously the rising food prices and I think demand has definitely been created for some of those foods that has impacted the price as well. Interestingly, like on the consumer side of things, you know, post covid, I think having had to manage those shortages that we saw in the grocery store. So when we saw that the foods weren’t actually there, like you went in and, and the sometimes grocery stores were shelves were bare, we had to then adjust what we were buying, adjust our recipes, adjust what we were cooking. And I think that’s going to carry through, Clinton now and help us through this sort of inflation process that we are seeing with the food costs because it’s going to help us you know. We’re, we’re already, you know, a little bit more sort of resourceful, little bit more creative. And so I think that’s going to help people to manage in some ways the food price increases that we’re seeing in the grocery store. I’m not sure if that’s going to continue long term. Like, I’m not sure. I mean what are you seeing as an economist? Are you seeing the reports predicting that food inflation is going to continue to rise? You said it’s coming down a little bit, but is that a is that a blip or..?
Clinton Monchuk: (17:50)
Even if I go back to last year and on our farm itself, seeing some of those just absolutely skyrocketing input costs, whether it was fertilizer or fuel prices or some of the other inputs that we had, you could see the writing on the wall that, you know, as soon as the harvests were done and you know, a little bit tighter supplies with the war going on in the Ukraine causing some issues in the block sea area. And you mentioned demand is strong, it’s strong throughout the globe right now. As a result of all these kind of things going together, you do see that there’s inflationary pressure on these foods that end up going back into what consumers are buying. So I think we could see that it was going up, but things have kind of stabilized, right? So, so we had that huge peak. Last I checked with some of the inflation.
Clinton Monchuk: (18:43)
We’re back down to about six to 9% depending on the commodities. I think we’re going to see a little bit more of a stabilization in getting back to our long-term food inflation. But it’s going to take time and that’s where I think as my opinion and the economy of every other economist is probably worth the same amount as a coffee at Tim Horton’s, right? So you just, you look at some of these things and you think, well it should stabilize, but we also know once there’s that level of when consumers are already conditioned to pay X amount for say milk or for bread or for whatever product it is, they rarely go back down to those pre levels. And that’s where I feel that when we talked about individuals with fixed income, that’s still going to be a struggle for a lot of those individuals. Right?
Shannon Crocker: (19:37)
Well it is for sure and I think, you know, as you were talking about covid, the prices already were adjusted a little bit higher because of the demand and because of supply issues trying to get different products into just into the grocery store, but also to make those products, right, the ingredients that they needed. So we already had seen that increase in the pricing during covid and you know, now we’ve seen this inflation price again. And you’re right, I mean I just even think about gas, right? Gasoline prices now have gone up so high that when it goes down to, you know, a dollar 35, we all think, that’s fantastic, what a savings!
Shannon Crocker: (20:12)
You know, but two years ago right, that would’ve been astronomical. So I think it’s the same thing. I’m sure that, you know, we’re not going to see food prices drop a whole lot and so we really have to figure out how are we going to be able to manage that. And you know, you mentioned again the people who are on fixed income, like for them it’s not just about doing some penny pinching at the grocery store. Really what they need is more money that we need policies in Canada to be able to support those people to have a fair and equitable income. This advice that we’re sharing around, hey, choosing canned tomatoes instead of of fresh is great for the average Canadian family, but for somebody who is living with food insecurity, that’s not enough.
Clinton Monchuk: (20:54)
And I would agree that it’s a sad situation. I read a stat earlier on, well actually the latter part of 2022 that indicated there’s actually more food banks in Canada than grocery stores. Think about that: that is shocking for a minute, right? That we have more food banks in this country than grocery stores. And obviously as an economist when there’s a demand shops get set up or establishments get set up. So that means there’s that much demand in our country for food because people can’t afford it. It really is an unfortunate fact of where we’re at right now, right?
Clinton Monchuk: (21:38)
So our fun farm fact today is from Fertilizer Canada. So the average farm in Canada would’ve spent between $60-$65 per acre to fertilize their land in 2021. And because of these pressures in 2022, that number jumped up to $130 to $140 an acre. So we’re talking more than double. That’s a significant increase from every farmer here in this country to put on the nutrients that the crops need to grow the food that feeds Canadians and people worldwide. So it’s a significant amount.
Shannon Crocker: (22:13)
That is huge. That is really, that is like jaw-droppingly huge. I think to hear that people can understand a little bit about like how the increases in price are sort of shuffle along. So when I think about that Clinton then I think, so what are you doing on the farm to help to manage those food costs and input costs actually that you are seeing on your end of the business?
Clinton Monchuk: (22:38)
So there’s certain things that are, they’re just budgetary items and you have limited influence. So for example, diesel fuel, it’ll be great in the future when we have some electronic tractors or combines that we can use or robotics that will kind of reduce some of the use around fossil fuels. But for now and for the foreseeable future, that’s still a big cost to our operation. We’ve tried to reduce the amount that we use by continuous or minimal tillage practices where we’re only covering our land once to plant it and put down our fertilizer. We also have other things like making sure that when we overlap, things automatically shut off on our drill or our sprayer to make sure we’re not, you know, inadvertently putting down too much fertilizer, too much herbicide or fungicide on the crop and making sure that we go back to the science.
Clinton Monchuk: (23:33)
Now this is something that’s interesting. So some of our listeners might not realize how much science is involved in what we do on the farm, but everything comes back to recommendations that are science-based from the universities that we work with or different plant breeders or soil scientists. And we use a system on our farm that actually tests the soil in each field and then that gives us the optimal fertilizer. And optimal plant counts for seed that we end up putting on our field. So for example, it’s no longer a random walk, it’s no longer, you know, this is what my dad did or my grandpa did 20 years ago. It is very scientifically done, not only on a field basis, but now we have the technology that every acre, and acre is roughly the size of the football field, every acre. It varies the amount of seed and fertilizer to make sure we optimize that amount of production. And as a result of that, we’re cutting our costs and we’re trying to lower the amount of inputs we use, but we still use inputs. There’s still fertilizer that we have to put in the ground. Our crops don’t grow without nitrogen, potash, sulfur, phosphate. We need these macronutrients and micronutrients to make sure we can still feed the world. And we’re just looking at every opportunity to use technology to reduce a lot of those costs.
Shannon Crocker: (25:03)
It’s actually amazing that you can use science in such a way that you can be so precise. And I think that that’s really interesting for people to learn as well. And if you think about it with your own self, right? Like every person is going to need different amounts of nutrients. So it just makes sense that, you know, different plants, different fields are also going to need different amounts of nutrients. So it’s great to be able to do that. Can I ask one related question?
Clinton Monchuk: (25:25)
You may.
(25:26)
I’ve been wondering about this because you know, in the grocery store we have the option to buy generic brands. So that’s one way that I always recommend people to save money. Just switch your brands and you’ll save a bit there for sure. I think there used to be a stigma around that, but the brands have really had a bit of a facelift or these generic brands have had a bit of a facelift I think, and millennials and Gen Zs are kind of making it cool and the quality has come up for sure. So that’s one way I suggest people to save money in the grocery store. Can you do that on your farm? Like can you buy generic fertilizer or can you buy generic brand feed for animals and would you even do that? Like would that make sense?
Clinton Monchuk: (26:06)
So there’s no Calvin Klein animal feed out there, however. So on the animal side of things, it’s really all balanced with commodities, right? So it’s not really branded. If you need, say canola meal and corn or wheat or barley, whatever it is, they’re just commodities that they pull to kind of do it. And it’s similar on the side of fertilizer too. It’s pretty generic anyways. And you have the ability to buy from so many different suppliers out there that it’s a fairly competitive market. Now where it’s a little bit different would be on say the seed and say herbicides or fungicides and usually there’s patents assigned to them and the patents have a limited lifespan. And when those patents run out, you see the generic versions come out. And typically what happens is when those generic versions come out and it’s the same active ingredients, a very similar type of genetic that they’re using, say on the seed side, when that comes off of patent then the prices drop, right?
Clinton Monchuk: (27:07)
Because now you have some pretty good competition with other companies to kind of fill that void. So there are a lot of options out there and I think to myself on our farm, you know, we grow a variety of different crops and I was just looking at our cropping rotation for this next year. We’ll have six different crops that we’re growing and predominantly we’re buying the seed from six different producers, whether it’s seed companies, either local or from different multinationals. So there is a lot of competition that’s out there and really it’s up to each individual farmer to just make sure whatever they’re buying fits with their farm and fits with their budgets too.
Shannon Crocker: (27:46)
That’s really interesting to know of course that you have the option to buy whichever seed you know works best for you, right? Or fertilizer that works best for you. So just kind of like when we go to the grocery store, when you were talking about how when the patent runs out, the other brands, you know, generics more generic comes in. That’s kind of the same thing that we do as humans, right? Like with our medication you’ve got the brand, you’ve got the name brand, and then once that patent wears out or I, I’m assuming that’s what happens, then you see the store brand version of Advil for example. And you can choose to buy that or not. It’s, you have to do what’s best for you. So that’s interesting that you can do that on the farm too.
Clinton Monchuk: (28:24)
Yes, it’s very similar in just in terms of the policies around that. So yeah, so one of the things that I wanted to talk about is the best before dates and one of the things that I had seen in the last year is that the European Union is actually deciding that they’re going to do away with some of those best before dates in an effort to try to make sure consumers are actually maybe keeping that food in the fridge and just doing a visual or a smell test to make sure that they’re okay. What are your, some of your views around this and how do you think consumers can work around some of these best before dates?
Shannon Crocker: (28:59)
Well I think consumers love those best before dates. It will be hard for them to lose them for sure. The problem is of course they don’t really understand them. I saw a report from 2022 from Dalhousie University of the Agri Food Lab that said something like 65% of people throw out unopened food because they look at the best before date and it’s past that already. But the best before date of course is just not in terms of food safety, it’s just in terms of food quality. So it could be the freshness, could be the taste, could be the texture. In the case of like probiotic yogurt for example, it could be that the bacteria are active up until that date, at that amount that it says on the label. So it’s really just about quality and freshness. You can extend your food. You don’t have to throw it out, you can continue to extend it beyond as long as it’s unopened and it is been stored properly.
Shannon Crocker: (29:50)
And so I think that if we didn’t use those best before dates in such a way that at that date it’s got to be thrown out, I think we could extend the shelf life of a lot of our foods, save ourselves a lot of money and reduce food waste at the same time. I think there needs to be a lot more education around those best before dates to help people to understand that it doesn’t mean that the food has expired or it’s not safe. The expiry date is a totally different thing. That’s only on nutrition supplements, meal replacements and nutritional infant food formulas. So that’s a totally different thing. The best before is really about the quality.
Clinton Monchuk: (30:29)
I want to thank you very much Shannon for being on the show today and sharing a lot of these great insights into really how consumers out there can just use their dollars a little bit more wisely and still get the nutrition that they actually need. And I truly feel that this is a timely podcast to make sure that people can hear your message and actually make some actions in their own families.
Shannon Crocker: (30:54)
Oh, thanks Clinton. I’m really happy to be here today. And I think, you know, if I could say sort of one thing is really around, you know, getting back to the basics, right? Like go back to those basic staple ingredients and look for ways to save some money on those as we’ve shared throughout here. And cooking at home is really one of the best ways that you can save money on food.
Shannon Crocker: (31:14)
Excellent. Well thank you very much for being on the podcast today. I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to our Ask a Farmer podcast. We at Canadian Food Focus value the input from our listeners and ask that you share this podcast with your friends and family. Remember, this is a two-way street, so we seek your input for future segments that are of interest to you about food and farming. To do this, please click on the ‘Ask Us’ icon at the top of our website, canadianfoodfocus.org. While you’re there, feel free to follow our numerous social media links and sign up for our newsletter. This segment was produced and edited by Angela Larson, research and writing by Dorothy Long and Penny Eaton. Music by Andy Ellison. I’m your host Clinton Monchuk. And from all of us here at Canadian Food Focus, we wish you good health and good eats.
Related articles and links:
- Article: Eat Well and Save Money Too!
- Article: How To Cook Once and Eat Twice
- Article: Ways to Shop Cook and Eat Healthy
- Stats Canada-Consumer Price Index
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