April 5, 1973: Few boycott meat in city despite soaring prices
Reports of the price of beef continuing to increase — they rose $3 to $5 per kilogram in the last four years — bring back memories of boycotts and interesting substitutions consumers tried when meat costs increased 41 years ago.
The pushback started in Ontario where some 600 Toronto housewives called for a national boycott of beef and pork during the first week of April.
The group, calling itself Women Against Soaring Prices (WASP), was following similar action in the United States that had resulted in a sharp 50-per-cent decline in wholesale beef, pork and lamb sales and some industry layoffs, although prices remained high.
WASP inspired two Edmonton women to form their own consumer action committee against rising food prices, called PORC (Protest Outrageous Rising Costs). They planned to take part in the boycott and hoped to collect a petition with as many as 25,000 signatures by setting up stations at all major shopping centres.
“We consumers have sat around complaining long enough,” Diana Haverstock, the group’s leader, said. “We are going to show the government and the large chain stores just who we are and how far we are prepared to go to accept what we think is fair. Our food prices today are obviously not fair.”
Despite the planned response on this side of the border, supermarket executives and food company officials weren’t worried. One said he had noticed people had switched to eating more chicken and fish, while Charles Gracey, manager of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, said beef consumption was continuing to rise with an “unprecedented consumer demand.”
Canadians ate more than 39 kilograms of beef per capita in 1971, 40 kg in 1972 and would eat even more in 1973, he predicted. (Today the average Canadian consumes 36 kg of meat annually.)
Within the first few days of the boycott, grocery store managers were reporting as much as a 15-per-cent drop in meat sales — in other parts of the country. Some consumers said they were experimenting with soy products. Newspapers ran recipes for meatless dishes. Celebrity chefs demonstrated how to cook pigs’ feet and horse meat.
In Alberta, the heart of cattle country, consumers continued buying meat, but were choosing cheaper cuts and ground beef instead of steak. One shopper rejected the idea of a meat boycott when the prices of all other food stuffs had risen almost the same proportion.
Then prime minister Pierre Trudeau noted the increase in food prices stemmed from a worldwide shortage of food caused by droughts and floods in various parts of the world, something that could not be remedied by a suggested introduction of wage and price ceilings.
As the weeklong boycott drew to a close, meat sales were already starting to creep back up.