The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Statistics Canada posted an easing in the headline inflation rate Tuesday but a jump in the pace of food inflation. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe quotes Statscan saying Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation edged down to 2.3 per cent in January. Economists had expected inflation to hold steady at 2.4 per cent. The agency said gas prices were 16.7 per cent lower year-over-year in January. Shelter inflation also fell to its lowest level in nearly five years as rent pressures abate. Those declines helped offset food inflation, which accelerated to 7.3 per cent annually in January from 6.2 per cent a month earlier. TD senior economist Leslie Preston said that part of the food inflation increase is a statistical phenomenon, while other factors tied to past inflationary pressures are still working their way through the supply chain. Statscan said a jump of 12.3 per cent in the cost of restaurant meals year-over-year drove the acceleration in food inflation last month. That surge was mostly tied to Ottawa's "tax holiday" -- a two-month break on the federal portion of sales tax on qualifying goods and services -- taking full effect a year earlier.