On top of “shrinkflation,” whereby the size of food products shrink but prices stay the same, Canadian consumers are now encountering “shelflation“—having to throw away some food products because they go bad before the expiry date, a new study shows.
“Shelflation“ happens when overripe or less fresh food products find their way onto store shelves due to supply chain issues, according to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, who recently coined the term in response to growing concern over its occurrence.
In a recent study, Charlebois asked consumers across the country if, in the previous month, they had to either throw away food before its expiry date or otherwise discard it prematurely. He found the number who had done this was “higher than expected.”
