Tracking Prices at the City Market in the 1920s and 1930s

By Connor DeMerchant - 21 October 2026

For generations of Saint John residents, the City Market was an essential place to purchase the food needed to feed their families. While the Market's vendors and distinctive Victorian building became familiar features of everyday life, the prices of the goods sold within its walls were anything but constant. During the 1920s and 1930s, local newspapers regularly reported weekly price variations at the Market, offering readers a glimpse of changing food costs, seasonal availability, and the conditions affecting local merchants and producers.

A Telegraph Journal article from September 1927 provides a particularly revealing example. Under the headline “Advance by Butter and Decline in Flour Feature City Market,” the newspaper documented a week in which some staples became more expensive while others declined in price. The report demonstrates how closely the cost of everyday groceries could be tied to changing demand, weather conditions, and the availability of agricultural products.

Butter and flour were the principal subjects of the report. Butter prices had risen, with dairy butter selling for approximately 33 to 40 cents per pound and creamery butter reaching 42 to 45 cents per pound. The newspaper noted that butter was five cents more expensive than it had been at the same time the previous year. This increase was attributed to strong demand for cream, which reduced the quantity available for butter production. Meanwhile, flour prices had fallen by 20 cents per barrel, lowering costs to $8.90 for Manitoba flour and $9.70 for Ontario flour.

The price of potatoes was another concern. New potatoes had increased in price, with a bushel rising from 25 to 40 cents in the wholesale market. The newspaper reported that dealers feared further increases and possible scarcity because wet weather had caused rot in the crop. This reflected the practical challenges facing agricultural producers and the merchants who depended on their harvests. Poor growing conditions could reduce the supply of a staple food and place additional pressure on prices.

Other vegetables and fruits experienced their own fluctuations. Small pork, rhubarb, cauliflower, lemons, oranges, and Brazil nuts were among the commodities that had increased in price. By contrast, green beans, onions, corn, blackberries, grapes, peaches, canned shrimps, and flour were among those reported as cheaper. Rhubarb prices were described as firmer, while the retail price of cauliflower had risen to between 15 and 35 cents each. Such variations showed the changing availability of produce throughout the growing season, as well as the different conditions affecting individual commodities.

The newspaper's report also included extensive price lists covering groceries, fruit, canned goods, provisions, sugar, flour, nuts, fish, grains, oils, and other products. These lists offer a valuable record of the range of goods available to Saint John consumers. They also reveal how the City Market served as more than a place to purchase locally grown vegetables and fresh meat. Shoppers could consult prices for imported fruit, packaged groceries, preserved foods, and other household necessities, making the Market an important part of the city's wider commercial life.[1]

The regular publication of these reports during the 1920s and 1930s gave readers a means of following changes in the cost of living. Rather than presenting prices as fixed, the newspaper emphasized their week-to-week movement, identifying which commodities had become dearer and which had become cheaper. For households managing limited budgets, such information could help inform purchasing decisions. For historians, these reports offer a window into the everyday economic concerns of the city's residents.

Although a single weekly report cannot establish long-term price trends, it provides a useful snapshot of the changing conditions that shaped everyday shopping. Read alongside similar reports from other weeks and years, these newspaper accounts can help trace how the cost of food evolved through the interwar period, including the economic difficulties of the 1930s. 

[1] “Advance by Butter and Decline in Flour Feature City Market. The Telegraph Journal. 16 September 1927, Pg. 9. 

Photo: Interior of the City Market, c. 1930s (PANB - P127-22)