A report from the University of Guelph's food institute forecasts food prices to increase about two to four per cent in 2016.

That means the average Canadian family will spend up to three hundred and forty five dollars more this year on groceries.

Professor of distribution and food policy Sylvain Charlebois says the weak Canadian dollar has contributed to these increases.

He talks more about what has affected prices.

“There’s not a whole lot of competition in distribution. There’s much less competition in distribution then a few years ago. That is giving food distributers some leverage overall so they are able to protect their margins a bit better and their financial results actually show that.”

He says like in the case of target, which closed across Canada, food distributors are focusing on strategy and consolidation.

Charlebois discusses what this could mean for meat prices.

“We are expecting modest increases in 2016 for beef and pork in particular. It’s not going to be as much as we have seen in recent years. In cattle for example inventories are being built up so things will stabilize somewhat over the next little while but it will take a bit more time but we are expecting these prices to rise a little bit and same for pork.”

Charlebois says grocery store prices for chicken and turkey will be a little more stable.