{"id":607060,"date":"2026-04-16T02:49:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607060\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:49:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:49:22","slug":"canadas-food-suppliers-are-adding-fuel-surcharges-they-say-are-temporary-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607060\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s food suppliers are adding fuel surcharges they say are \u2018temporary\u2019 – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadians might be seeing their grocery<\/a> bills inch higher with food suppliers warning grocers they will be imposing a fuel surcharge<\/a> on their deliveries to grocery stores.<\/p>\n

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Global News has obtained notices sent by three of Canada\u2019s largest food suppliers to their grocery clients \u2014 first reported on by CBC News \u2014 informing them of the surcharges.<\/p>\n

Maple Leaf Foods sent a letter to clients on March 31, informing them that they will start charging a fuel surcharge starting April 6.<\/p>\n

Citing \u201cdevelopments in the Middle East\u201d and \u201ca sharp increase in crude oil prices, resulting in a rapid and significant escalation in fuel costs,\u201d the company said it would add a temporary fuel surcharge of $0.11 per kg to all prepared meats and fresh poultry shipments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a permanent price increase, but rather a temporary adjustment tied directly to fuel cost movements,\u201d the company said in its letter.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are not using this mechanism to recover other inflationary pressures such as raw materials, packaging, or ingredients,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Tree of Life, in a letter dated March 23, said they would add a fuel surcharge of $10 per shipment starting April 22.<\/p>\n

The company said higher fuel prices \u201chave resulted in a sustained increase in diesel fuel costs, directly impacting our logistics and distribution operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tree of Life is the Canadian subsidiary of the U.S.-based food supplier KeHE Distributors, which supplies retailers and grocers across the continent.<\/p>\n

However, the company said it would remove the surcharge if diesel costs returned to a rolling three-month average of $1.20 per litre or lower.<\/p>\n

According to GasBuddy, the average diesel price in Canada was $1.78 per litre on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Some food suppliers are also increasing their minimum order requirements.<\/p>\n

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Ontario-based meat supplier Brandt Meats told clients they will be increasing their minimum order requirement to $1,000 for all deliveries starting May 4, according to one of the letters obtained by Global News.<\/p>\n

\u201cRising fuel and labour costs have significantly increased transportation expenses across our industry. Until now, Brandt Meats has absorbed these additional costs in order to minimize the impact on our customers. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to fully offset these increases and must adjust our delivery requirements,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

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Sobeys has received fuel surcharge requests from grocers and said they will refuse to pay it, according to an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have received a few requests from suppliers to date, which we have declined,\u201d a Sobeys spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSimilar to our approach to tariffs at this time last year, we believe the fuel market is too unpredictable to take any decisions that could adversely impact the value we provide to our customers,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Loblaw said they are \u201cin regular dialogue with our suppliers and continue to review cost increase submissions,\u201d including on any fuel surcharges.<\/p>\n

The company said in a statement that they will \u201cpush back on unjustified cost increases, including on fuel surcharges where not justified,\u201d but did not say in what situations they consider cost increases justified.<\/p>\n

Metro said it \u201ccarefully reviews and negotiates supplier requests to ensure they are justified and to limit the impact on our customers, while continuing to offer competitive prices,\u201d without adding any further detail on what would make those requests justified.<\/p>\n

Smaller and independent grocers, however, are worried that they will not have the option of pushing back against any cost increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disconcerting for us to hear that these surcharges and the impact of rising fuel prices isn\u2019t going to be shared equally with all retail sectors. A smaller independent grocer certainly does not have the leverage of some of the big chains,\u201d said Gary Sands, senior vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.<\/p>\n

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Northern and rural communities, as well as urban food deserts, will be most significantly impacted by food price increases, which will be passed on to consumers, Sands said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn retail grocery, you have very narrow margins. Independents are, in a good year, operating on about a two per cent overall margin. If you\u2019re getting fuel surcharges \u2026 and trucking costs are going up by 40 to 50 per cent, there\u2019s just no way that you can avoid passing that on to your customers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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Adding fuel surcharges to the cost of deliveries is \u201cperfectly legal,\u201d said University of Guelph food economist Mike von Massow, with some suppliers even putting it into contracts with their clients.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEven if it is not part of the contract, freight charges are going up and they are passing them along. It is actually better if they do temporary surcharges instead of permanent price increases,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In Canada, companies are generally free to set the price level at which they sell their products, the Competition Bureau said, so long as those prices do not amount to price gouging.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the provinces and territories have rules related to price gouging in Canada,\u201d the bureau said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Competition Bureau enforces the Competition Act, which includes provisions against \u201cillegal practices such as price-fixing, competitor collaborations, misleading advertising, and abuse of dominant position.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bureau did not say whether this is being looked into, since it is required by law to conduct its work independently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bureau must conduct a thorough and complete examination of the facts of any matter before reaching a conclusion as to whether the Competition Act has been contravened,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The fuel surcharge is \u201cno surprise,\u201d said Conservative MP Sandra Cobena.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take a genius to realize that that ultimately erases any savings that the suspension of the excise tax that the prime minister announced yesterday would have provided Canadians,\u201d Cobena said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are proposing that all federal taxes are removed for the remainder of the year. If we are able to approve that plan, then there will actually be a relief for Canadians,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The fuel surcharges will stretch Canadians thin as they struggle to afford groceries, the federal NDP said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow food suppliers are threatening to charge grocery retailers fuel surcharges, which will be downloaded onto consumers. Small businesses are forced to raise their prices or eat into their profits while big oil corporations continue to rake in billions in excess profits,\u201d NDP MP and the party\u2019s critic for agriculture and small business Gord Johns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadians might be seeing their grocery bills inch higher with food suppliers warning grocers they will be imposing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,1849,46,224069,26690,5897],"class_list":{"0":"post-607060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-consumer","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-fuel-surcharge","14":"tag-grocery","15":"tag-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}