[WRFoodNews] for foodnews: Food Freedom Day Feb 12 2009

[ellen desjardins]

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-Ellen Desjardins

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=1279667

Food Freedom Day comes almost two weeks later due to recent price hikes

Published: Thursday, February 12, 2009

Today is Food Freedom Day, the day when the Canadian Federation of Agriculture says the average consumer has earned enough money to buy food for the entire year. "This includes restaurant meals, what they buy from stores, and it works out that by Feb. 12 they would have earned enough money to be able to pay their food bill for the year," federation spokesman Ron Bonnett says. The federation says due to recent rises in food prices, Food Freedom Day is occurring slightly later this year compared with 2008, when it fell on Feb. 3. It also bucks the trend of recent years, where the disposable income of Canadians rose significantly faster than the cost of food. "A lot of that is tied up in increased fuel costs, distribution costs, the marketing costs that are involved with food," Mr. Bonnett says. Statistics Canada says that in 2007, the average consumer spent 12.6% of disposable income on food.