More delicious fresh fruit and veggies published with the new Consumer Price Index basket, less old stuff included

Every year, we “spruce up” our Consumer Price Index (CPI), during the basket update, by fine tuning the classification structure and adding more detail to better reflect current Canadian spending habits. We also discard items falling out of favour with consumers.

More detailed fresh fruit and veggie data will be published with this year’s basket update. On the other hand, DVDs and landline telephones are increasingly falling out of favour with Canadians and are therefore losing their prized dedicated slot in the 2022 CPI basket.

What is a Consumer Price Index basket?

The CPI is a fixed basket of goods and services which accurately tracks the prices Canadians pay for the necessities of life such as food, clothing, shelter (including heating or cooling your home) and transportation.

We also keep track of popular “discretionary” items Canadians like to spend money on such as technological gadgets, dining out, recreational activities or alcoholic beverages.

The goods we track and the weight they carry in our CPI basket are very much dependent on you (the consumer!), since the basket is designed based on your 2022 spending habits gleaned from our household consumption data.

Since spending habits change over time, the basket is now updated every year to ensure it includes a representative sample of what Canadians are currently buying. Updating the CPI basket weights regularly is an internationally recognized best practice in delivering the most accurate and relevant index to Canadians.

More detailed fresh fruit and veggie prices are now published in the Consumer Price Index

Rising food prices have hit the pocketbook of every Canadian over the last two years. Prices for fresh fruit, for example, rose 5.7% year over year in May 2023 and are 17.6% higher since May 2021. Prices for fresh veggies increased 8.9% year over year in May 2023 and are 20.1% higher since May 2021.

To give Canadians more insight into the price changes of fruits and veggies over time, we are publishing more price indexes for specific types of popular fruits and veggies which were previously lumped into the “other” categories.

Citrus (excluding oranges), grapes, and berries (including cherries), which were all previously included in the other fresh fruit category, are now published separately under fresh fruit.

Similarly, carrots, onions, peppers, cucumbers and mushrooms are now published separately under fresh vegetables. Previously these products were included in the other fresh vegetables index.

Users can now keep track of price changes for these specific fruits and vegetables. For instance, within the fresh fruit category, prices for grapes (+34.2%) increased the most month over month in May 2023, while prices for berries (including cherries) decreased 10.8%.

Pulling the plug on DVD players and landline telephones

Technology is continually evolving, and new innovations often make older technologies less appealing to consumers.

While you may still cherish your DVD player or landline telephone, Canadians overall are not buying them at a level high enough to justify keeping them in the CPI basket. For example, telephone equipment, which included phones used with land lines, entered the basket comprising 0.07% of the CPI basket in 2009 but made up less than 0.01% of consumer spending in 2021.

In May 2023, the first month where data for these products were not included in the CPI basket, prices for video equipment, which includes televisions and video game consoles, were down 7.9% year over year. Similarly, prices for communications, which includes cell phone plans, postal services and internet access services, fell 3.5% year over year.

To remain representative of the spending habits of Canadians, the CPI continues to price the latest technology available such as the newest generations of smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and video games.

More detail published for cellular services

We used to only publish the prices of cellular services exclusively at the national level, but starting with May 2023 data, cellular prices and weights will now also be published at the provincial level.

This will highlight variations among the provinces and territories and provide Canadians with the information they need when renewing their cell plan.

Looking for the full basket update story?

For more detailed information, consult the document entitled "An Analysis of the 2023 Consumer Price Index Basket Update, Based on 2022 Expenditures.”