Sask. residents throw out least amount of fresh produce in Canada: study

What’s causing food waste? WATCH: CTV Saskatoon’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti has more on how much food is being discarded in Saskatchewan.

Due to “shelflation,” Canadians are throwing out close to $550 million dollars worth of fresh food in the last six months, according to a recent study.

The new term is defined as when supply chain issues lead to overripe or less fresh food products making their way onto grocery store shelves.

The study done by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University found that 63 per cent of Canadians said they’ve had to throw away food prematurely at least once in the last six months.

According to the study, the Atlantic region threw out the most food before its expiry at 70 per cent, while Saskatchewan threw out the least at 42 per cent.

“It could be that Saskatchewan, (is) kind of right at the centre of North America, is actually a hub for things coming in and out and then getting distributed from there,” said Justine Magic, research program coordinator with the lab.

Numbers found in the study were “surprising” as researchers didn’t expect to see such a high amount of food waste.

Based on food categories, the highest percentage of food thrown out was produce at 45 per cent, followed by dairy at 31 per cent and bakery products at 27 per cent.

While the deterioration of the freshness of food can happen at any time, researchers suspect the pandemic and global supply chain have made it worse in recent months.

Magic suggests grocery shopping every two to three days to prevent overbuying in order to throw away less food.