An Ontario mother says the increasing cost of baby formula for her seven month old is stressful.
Since Samantha Krobel’s child was born in November 2023, she says the cost of formula has gone up roughly $12.
“We were paying $57.97 per box and we would go through about three boxes a month. Then all of a sudden, in June, it jumped up to $69.97,” said Krobel.
“And it’s not just her brand. I’ve seen other brands going up too, but it definitely seems like Similac is the worst.”
Krobel said she emailed Abbott, the U.S. company that makes baby formula Similac, and was told that costs associated with making and delivering the product has increased, which is why the cost of some products have gone up.
“Abbott is committed to delivering high-quality infant formula. We understand the pressure that rising costs have on families and that’s why we work diligently to manage costs for formula ingredients, manufacturing and distribution,” the company said in a statement to CTV News. “Infant formula is very complex to produce and export. This makes it necessary to adjust for some of our increasing costs to serve Canadian families.”
According to Statistics Canada, the average price of baby formula jumped 30 per cent between February 2022 and February 2024.
The catalyst that initially pushed the prices up came from food safety issues at the Abbott and Nestle plant in the United States, which forced a reduction in production of baby formula, creating a supply issue in both the U.S. and the Canadian markets.
Additional data from StatCan shows that the average price of baby formula has gone up 10 per cent during the first five months of this year.
Sylvain Charlebois, director of Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, says there isn’t a shortage of the product currently, but there are other reasons in addition to production and supply costs driving up the price.
“Transportation costs are another issue. The currency is another issue. So there are multiple factors that have actually made this product more expensive,” he said.
Krobel says she is still able to afford the formula for her baby but worries about more vulnerable families.
“I live in an area of London that’s very close to an area where there’s a lot of very low income people and a lot of homeless people. I can’t imagine how stressful it must be for them wondering how they’re going to feed the baby.”
She says she wishes there were more brand options for baby formula in stores.
“You end up with companies that have like a monopoly on it, like you go to Walmart and there’s basically only three brands of formula on the shelf. And they can do whatever they want,” she said.
But there may be relief for Canadian parents.
Canada Royal Milk, a Chinese-owned manufacturer based in Kingston, Ont., has launched its own baby formula called Niuriss, making it the only infant formula produced in the country.
In a press release, the company says the formula is available for purchase online and its facility has the “capacity to produce enough formula to meet the needs of the Canadian market entirely.”
“Adding a new baby formula product to the Canadian market may not reduce prices immediately,” said Charlesbois. “But it will likely decrease the chances of price increases by the end of the year.”