Participatory Food Costing Working Group

Participatory food costing was first conducted in Nova Scotia in 2002 with funding from Health Canada and has since been repeated in 2004/2005, 2007 and 2008 with the funding support from the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection.  Nova Scotia is the only province to use a participatory research approach to food costing.  Community partners are involved in decision making, in data collection and analysis, and in the use of research to influence policy and help build food security in Nova Scotia.

Using a standardized tool known as the National Nutritious Food Basket (NNFB), people from various community-based organizations, organize and carry out data collection from a stratified random sample of grocery stores across the province.  The NNFB can be used to calculate the cost of a basic nutritious diet for 23 different age and gender groups, including pregnant and breastfeeding women.  From these costs, the cost of eating a basic nutritious diet for a household of any size or composition can be estimated. 

Food costing in Nova Scotia indicates that, since 2002, there has been an almost 18% increase in the cost of the food basket for a household of two adults and two children. Results have also consistently demonstrated that the cost of a basic nutritious diet is higher in rural areas and in smaller grocery stores versus the cost in urban areas and larger stores. 

Evidence from this work has influenced both policy and practice within Nova Scotia and has been used in many other jurisdictions across Canada working on policy-oriented approaches to food insecurity. In addition, lessons learned through food costing project have contributed to the development of a web-accessible, plain language, bilingual workbook, “Thought About Food? A Workbook on Food Security & Influencing Policy” and an accompanying DVD.

For more information or for a copy of the 2008 Report on Participatory Food Costing, please visit our website.