There’s a Shoppers Drug Mart down the street from where I live that I often visited in the months after my children were born. I’d buy one tub of Enfamil infant formula a month — enough to measure out one feed a day for the first few months of their lives. My husband got some bonding time with his kids, and I got a break from the otherwise round-the-clock labour of breastfeeding.
I was on mat-leave pay both times and budgeted carefully. When my first child was born in 2017, one 663-gram tub cost roughly $33 — less if it was on sale and as low as $18 if I could stack the purchase with coupons. Four years and another mat leave later, I noticed a price hike, and it was closer to $40. Sales were far less frequent. The store displayed the tubs differently, leaving the shelves bare save for a single empty box of each brand and a small sign instructing shoppers to ask a sales associate to bring them the product from the back. These days, I’ve noticed the boxes are kept under digitized locks. A single tub is regularly $50.
This isn’t a localized problem, as news stories fromCape Breton andSudbury will tell you. Canadian families relying on infant formula to feed their young children are feeling the price pinch. Research confirms what their grocery bills show: formula prices have risen by at least 30 per cent since 2022, the yearAmerica’s shortage crisis spilled over into Canada, reducing overall stock and makingspecialized types exceedingly difficult to find. Depending on the type of product and a child’s needs, a household formula budget can run between $400 and $600 per month. That’s a car payment, or a second grocery bill entirely.
This situation is worrying, and it’s not tenable. While most of us have done double takesover the price of cooking oil or cheese in the circus of Canadian food costs, parents of formula-fed children don’t have the option to switch products, shop around, or go without. Breast milk and formula are the only two substances that can properly and safely nourish a child in the first six months of life. There are no substitutes.
One would think this reality would mean society is set up to make either option accessible, but nothing could be further from the truth.As I learned the first time around, breastfeeding full time is profoundly demanding physical and psychological labour that requires a family support system, the ability to take leave from work, and sometimes costly equipment of its own. The price tag may not be visible, but it’s present and very real.
So is the reality that, for any parent who can’t take leave from work or produce milk, has children with specific medical or digestive needs, or simply doesn’t breastfeed for any given reason that’s their business alone, formula isn’t just an alternative to breast milk. It’s the only way they feed their children.
Yet despite — or perhaps because of — the essential nature of this product, the infant-formula industry is profoundly concentrated, withfive companies controlling about 60 per cent of the global market; in the United States, just three companies make up most of that country’s supply. Untilthe recent opening of Canada Royal Milk in Kingston, there had been no domestic formula producers in this country. Most of our supply came from either the U.S. or Europe. This has left us open to the kinds of supply-chain issues and unexplained price hikes we’ve seen lately. Unless the federal government starts paying attention to what parents have dealt with since 2022, things aren’t going to improve anytime soon.
There are so many ways to think about addressing this, some of which would benefit more than just parents and their infants. For short-term relief: subsidize formula prices for those who rely on specialized formulas and create grant programs for food-security organizations geared toward young families. If we’re thinking long-term (and we should be): Canada, thanks to its supply-managed dairy system,consistently produces an excess of one of formula’s key ingredients — non-fat milk solids. Industry groups say changes to Canada’s regulatory framework would allow and encouragemore manufacturers to set up business here, ensuring a consistent supply and better control over prices.
Canadian parents are going to great lengths to keep their children fed — swapping via Facebook groups, using food banks, forgoing bill payments — as anyone would. It’s time for policymakers to step up to the plate to help them.
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