Dry and fresh pasta prices have jumped 45 per cent over the past year, a lag effect from the 2021 drought
Busy families with picky eaters can prepare steaming bowls of cost-friendly spaghetti or penne in minutes, a salve to hectic schedules and stretched budgets.
Consumers are feeling the lag effects of a double whammy for wheat prices: The Prairies experienced the worst drought in decades in 2021, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in fewer wheat exports and soaring costs for the key ingredient. In large part, that’s because pasta is heavily influenced by wheat prices. On packages of orzo and orecchiette, spaghetti and bucatini, there is often just one ingredient listed: durum wheat semolina.
“That’s why the 2021 drought had such an impact – because Canada is the world’s largest supplier. So what happens here can’t be offset by big production” elsewhere, said Chuck Penner, owner of LeftField Commodity Research in Winnipeg. The current situation is akin to that of 2007 and 2008, when global food prices surged for a handful of reasons, including widespread drought in grain-producing regions. By the summer of 2008, pasta prices in Canada had increased by more than 40 per cent within months.
Another solid growing season would help. That’s more of a wild-card element. Richard Gray, who plants durum and other crops at his family farm near Indian Head, Sask., about 70 kilometres east of Regina, said there’s limited moisture reserves in the soil after a dry fall.
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