You're bringing up some excellent points. I won't say that costs are just going up in fuel and insurance. They are going up in everything.
If you're bringing product in from outside of North America, the ocean line shipping costs have increased tenfold from what they were, and I'm going back to where those costs were six months ago. They have now started to come down due, basically, to a supply and demand situation. The costs now, we're hearing, are back to 2018 levels, so that's normalizing from a certain standpoint.
However, the changing patterns that have occurred through COVID, where the imports have definitely increased coming into North America, have had a significant effect on congestion. Our ports have not expanded. We have no more land to put the product on, so congestion is a part of the supply chain.
What we are experiencing now due to the backlog that was created out of Vancouver and the ships at anchorage.... In order to clear that backlog, they moved the product into central Canada, into Toronto and Montreal. The rail yards you used to have.... One had three yards in Toronto; it now has nine. One had one; it now has two. Equally, they have expanded into the Montreal area as well. Because of that, containers are being split. We don't know where the containers are. They are just added congestion to these additional yards.
Because these yards have opened up as well, the rail yards have additional expenses. The rail yards have changed their demurrage and detention charges. They are now charging, really, after 24 hours, so they have reverted from 72 hours on demurrage and detention to 24 hours. In addition to that, there is the cost of movement from the rail yard to these additional container yards that have since opened up, and we figure that the average cost for an import container now has increased about $1,500 from what it was prior to this congestion's being created.
You're talking about the cost of increases on food. There are increases on everything that is being imported into this country at this point in time, due to the congestion issues that have resulted through the supply chain.