Tomatoes cost how much now? Why inflation has come for Canada's produce section

Tomatoes are expensive right now any way you slice them.

Tomato prices rose 45.2 per cent year-over-year in May, according to new inflation numbers released Monday by Statistics Canada. That's by far the highest price increase since May last year for any grocery item measured in the Consumer Price Index, beating usual suspects coffee and beef by leaps and bounds.

Statistics Canada explains this jump is due to supply contractions in Mexico, "stemming from poor weather and a reduction in planted acreage following the implementation of U.S. tariffs."

In April, when tomato prices jumped 40 per cent in the U.S., people there pointed to U.S. President Donald Trump's policies for the price surge, alongside crop yields and other issues.

But with Canadian data now available for May, it appears Canada's tomato inflation has trumped theirs. In May, U.S. tomato prices dropped 8.5 per cent from April, increasing 32 per cent year-over-year.

In Canada, we're seeing a continuation of the same issues — like yield problems in Mexico, tariffs and transportation costs — that plagued tomato prices earlier this spring, Michael von Massow, a food agriculture professor at Ontario's University of Guelph, told CBC News.

Canadians are creatures of habit, and tomato demand climbs in the summer as more people add them to salads and other barbeque fare, Michael von Massow, a food agriculture professor at Ontario's University of Guelph, told CBC News.