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Grocery Prices Will Keep Rising No Matter What Politicians Promise

Cash rebates help but leave us powerless against entrenched chains

When I can, I cook at home and make my own coffee. My food budget doesn’t care.

Coffee is up 30.8 percent year-over-year. Beef is up 16.8 percent. The average family is paying $1,600 more a year on groceries than they were before the pandemic. Canada now outpaces the United States on food inflation, and five chains still control 79 percent of the market. The Grocery Code of Conduct that took effect January 1 won’t change that. It governs how retailers treat suppliers, not how they price milk.

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With inflation and the cost of living topping Canadians’ concerns by a wide margin in the latest Angus Reid poll and the Mark Carney government exploring solutions, including the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, it makes sense to seek out what’s working and what isn’t in other jurisdictions.

Alexina Cather served as co-chair of former New York City mayor Eric Adams’ food policy transition team and spent six years as deputy director at the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center. Cather—who I think of as a grocery guru—now directs policy at Wellness in the Schools and serves as deputy chair and chief policy adviser at the Center for Food as Medicine.

When New York mayor Zohran Mamdani announced his plan for five city-run grocery stores, Cather was among the first to point out it wouldn’t be enough; positing that you’d need something like twenty to move prices.

Prime Minister Carney’s Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit boosts goods and services tax credits to put money in pockets. It is a demand-side play: help people afford groceries without........

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