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CHARLEBOIS: Grocery shopping's new normal -- more strategy, less freedom

Food remains the top financial concern for Canadians. No other category comes close. This persistence tells us something critical: while inflation is moderating, affordability has not improved in any meaningful way

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Canadians are no longer bracing for runaway food inflation, but that doesn’t mean they’ve recovered from it. The latest data from the latest Canadian Food Sentiment Index, produced by Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, suggests something more nuanced: the shock of inflation may be fading, but its effects are now deeply embedded in how Canadians live, spend, and eat.

To understand where we are today, we need to look back.

CHARLEBOIS: Grocery shopping's new normal -- more strategy, less freedom Back to video

When the first Index was first released in fall 2024, Canadians were in the thick of a food inflation crisis. At the time, 40.3% of respondents believed food prices had risen by more than 10%, and anxiety was widespread. Food had already emerged as the dominant household concern, with 84.1% of Canadians identifying it as the expense that had increased the most, a staggering figure that set the tone for everything that followed.

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Then came a political shift. In March 2025, Mark Carney became Prime Minister, inheriting an economy already under strain, with food affordability at the center of the national conversation. Nearly a year later, Canadians might reasonably ask: are things actually better?

The answer depends on what you measure.

If we look at perceptions of inflation, the situation has improved. By spring 2026, the share of Canadians who believe food prices rose by more than 10% has dropped to 29.7%, while expectations have stabilized. Today, 30.7% of Canadians expect food inflation to fall between 5% and 7%, and only 18.6% anticipate increases above 10%, down significantly from the previous year.

In that narrow sense, Canadians feel less alarmed.

But feeling less alarmed is not the same as feeling better.

More spent on food, despite cutbacks

Food remains the top financial concern for Canadians, with 81.1% still identifying it as the expense that has increased the most, only slightly down from 84.1% in 2024. No other category comes close. This persistence tells us something critical: while inflation is moderating, affordability has not improved in any meaningful way.

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That reality is reflected in household budgets. Canadians are now spending more on food than they were a year ago, despite all efforts to cut back. Average monthly spending on food at home has climbed to just over $412, up from $396 the year before — an increase of $22.96 per month, or 4.6% year-over-year. At the same time, the share of households spending more than $600 per month on groceries has risen to 20.6%, reinforcing the steady upward drift in food costs.

Yet Canadians are not offsetting these increases by spending more elsewhere. Dining out remains constrained, with the largest share of households still spending $50 or less per month on restaurants and takeout. Households are prioritizing food at home, often at the expense of discretionary spending.

To cope, Canadians have fundamentally changed how they shop.

In Fall 2024, cost-cutting behaviours surged as households scrambled to respond to rising prices. Today, those behaviours have become normalized. According to the Index, 44.4% of Canadians actively seek sales and discounts, while roughly 23% use coupons, 23% shop at cheaper stores, and about 20% cut back on premium foods such as meat or fresh produce. Even alternative strategies are emerging, with 8.5% of Canadians now using food-rescue or surplus apps.

This is no longer crisis behaviour — it is routine behaviour.

And yet, despite all these adjustments, financial strain remains widespread. In Fall 2024, about 34% of Canadians reported drawing from savings or borrowing money to pay for food. That number dipped slightly in 2025, offering a brief sense of relief. But by Spring 2026, it has returned to 34%, unchanged from the peak.

One in three Canadians is still struggling to afford food.

So are Canadians better off today than they were before Mark Carney took office?

If we measure sentiment by panic, the answer is yes, slightly.

If we measure it by financial reality, the answer is no.

Consumers priced out of local food

Perhaps the most telling shift over the past two years is in how Canadians define value. In Fall 2024, affordability was already important. By Spring 2026, it has become overwhelmingly dominant. Today, 45.5% of Canadians cite affordability as their top food priority, compared to 24.9% for nutrition and roughly 16% for taste.

Everything else — environmental impact, social responsibility, even local sourcing — has taken a back seat.

This helps explain why broader consumer movements are losing momentum. The “Buy Canadian” surge seen in 2025 has already begun to soften. While many Canadians still prefer local products, the data show that cost is once again the overriding factor. Consumers are not abandoning local food—they are being priced out of it.

At the same time, Canadians are becoming more strategic. Grocery shopping frequency now averages 5.23 visits per month, reflecting a shift toward smaller, more frequent trips aimed at controlling spending. Consumers are also paying more attention to product information, with a growing share checking food origins and labels. This is not just awareness—it is optimization under constraint.

The evolution of the Canadian Food Sentiment Index since Fall 2024 tells a clear story. The acute phase of food inflation has passed. But it has been replaced by something more persistent: a prolonged period of affordability stress.

Mark Carney may have inherited this problem, but nearly a year into his tenure, Canadians are still living with it. The numbers suggest that while inflation has cooled, the burden on households has not.

Prices are still rising. Budgets are still stretched. And one in three Canadians is still struggling to afford food.

That is not recovery. That is adaptation under constraint.

If policymakers continue to focus solely on inflation rates, they will miss the deeper issue. The challenge is no longer volatility — it is persistence. Even moderate inflation, sustained over time, erodes purchasing power and forces difficult trade-offs that affect nutrition, health, and food security.

Canadians have shown they can adapt. But adaptation is not the same as resilience — and right now, that resilience is still being tested.

– Sylvain Charlebois is director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, co-host of The Food Professor Podcast and visiting scholar at McGill University

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