Lea Reambeault can walk to three discount supermarkets in minutes from her Toronto apartment above a Food Basics store. Still, grocery shopping is a chore she often leaves to her partner out of anxiety.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old mother of three has been out of work since the birth of her youngest daughter a year ago. Her family of five \u2014 squeezed into a two-bedroom unit \u2014 relies on her partner\u2019s roughly $80,000 annual income and spends about $600 a week on groceries and household essentials. Sometimes the couple has to put off rent to keep food on the table.<\/p>\n
Every trip to the store is a reminder of how sharply prices of basics like milk, formula and diapers have risen since the births of her two youngest children. With a preschooler on the autism spectrum who has a limited diet and a one-year-old still on formula, Reambeault finds that even a routine grocery run has become a source of stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll walk up and down the aisles and constantly look at prices and put things away that I probably need,\u201d she said. \u201cI get too anxious, so I\u2019ll end up not even buying the things that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of May, grocery prices had risen faster than the overall inflation rate for the 16th consecutive month and were about 31 per cent higher than five years earlier, according to Statistics Canada.<\/p>\n
The outcry from Canadians about food insecurity prompted Ottawa last month to announce a national food security strategy<\/a> backed by more than $3 billion in investments over 10 years. The strategy aims to build a more affordable food system by helping independent grocers compete, boosting domestic food production, and expanding year-round production of fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n \u201cCanadian families will see lower prices at the grocery store, greater choice in where to shop and what to buy,\u201d the 27-page strategy read.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Competition Bureau has announced an examination of Canada\u2019s food supply chain<\/a>, from production and transportation to price algorithms and shrinkflation, to look for potential competition issues affecting food affordability.<\/p>\n Will the government\u2019s multi-billion-dollar plan and the competition investigation be enough to rein in grocery prices?<\/p>\n The Star spoke with 10 experts across the food, agriculture and competition law sectors, who welcomed the government initiatives, but offered divided views on whether the measures can address the forces driving food inflation.<\/p>\n The national food strategy \u201cshould make Canada\u2019s food system more domestic. It should, in theory, make it more resilient,\u201d said Tyler McCann, managing director at Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. \u201cThat may not mean that all of those investments are going to make food more affordable in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n What is driving food inflation?<\/p>\n When consumer inflation hit a 40-year high in 2022<\/a>, many hoped that easing pandemic pressures and recovering supply chains would bring food inflation under control. But that relief never came.<\/p>\n McCann said Canada is experiencing a \u201cpolycrisis,\u201d with multiple factors driving up food prices simultaneously, making inflation more sustained than usual.<\/p>\n Over the past few years, more frequent extreme weather has disrupted the supply chain of many goods, from coffee to beef. Years of droughts in the Prairies have led to a reduced cattle herd, causing beef prices to rise significantly, he said.<\/p>\n Ground beef now sells for $16.07 per kilogram, which is 70 per cent higher than it was five years ago, while tomato prices rose 45.2 per cent per kilogram\u00a0in May due to poor weather in Mexico and reduced planted acreage following U.S. tariff implementation, according to Statistics Canada data.<\/p>\n The macroeconomic environment in Canada is not favourable either \u2014 the loonie lost value in late 2024 and again over the past three months, raising costs for imported products.<\/p>\n Moreover, geopolitical factors, such as sanctions on Russia and the conflicts in the Middle East, have triggered repeated spikes in fuel prices, driving up transportation and fertilizer costs, said Al Mussell, founder of the research organization Agri-Food Economic Systems. Higher oil prices tend to drive up corn prices, which in turn push up the prices of wheat, soybeans and other food commodities, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not one thing,\u201d said Michael Graydon, the chief executive officer at Food Health & Consumer Products of Canada. \u201cIt\u2019s this massive combination, and it all seemed to hit at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Will the national food strategy actually work?<\/p>\n For a country that relies heavily on imports and is therefore vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, many experts agree that a national food strategy \u2014 which commits to \u201cgrowing, processing and selling more of our own food here\u201d \u2014 would make the food system more resilient.<\/p>\n Canada processes far less of the food it grows at home. As part of the strategy, Farm Credit Canada (FCC), a Crown financial institution, is committing to a $1-billion agri-food project finance fund to finance scaling and processing infrastructure in Canada and hopes to attract private-sector investment, according to Craig Johnson, the FCC\u2019s chief economist.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re building up this ability to process and create value-added infrastructure at home, we\u2019re less vulnerable to those price shocks when they come,\u201d Johnson said, adding that greater domestic processing capacity should lower prices for some processed foods on grocery shelves in the long run.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the FCC pledged $2 billion, backed by $5 billion from the private sector, for a total of $7 billion in Canada\u2019s largest agricultural technology investment to support innovation and adoption that could improve farm efficiency and lower costs.<\/p>\n As part of the $3-billion national food strategy, Ottawa is pledging $650 million in controlled-environment agriculture, including greenhouses and vertical farms. Those investments could buffer Canada against sharp price swings triggered by weather disruptions abroad, according to Mike von Massow, a food economics professor at the University of Guelph.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means that future prices might not go up as much when there are problems in some of our supply areas,\u201d von Massow said. \u201cSo what we\u2019re doing is preventing future increases, not necessarily generating future decreases.\u201d<\/p>\n Graydon, representing food and consumer goods manufacturers, said he is encouraged by the government\u2019s efforts to cut red tape in food inspection and pest control regulations, which he says are holding back innovation and investment.<\/p>\n However, many remain skeptical about how effective the strategy will be in combating food inflation.<\/p>\n McCann said growing and processing food domestically may not be the most affordable approach, since relying on imports allows Canada to shop globally for the lowest-cost food.<\/p>\n Von Massow argued Ottawa\u2019s $1-billion investment in food terminals and food hubs could lower costs for independent grocers, but they\u2019ll still struggle to match the distribution efficiencies of major chains.<\/p>\n The food strategy could narrow the gap between food and headline inflation, he said. But the strategy\u2019s claim that \u201cCanadian families can expect lower prices at grocery stores\u201d is \u201cdefinitely an exaggeration.\u201d<\/p>\n Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said he wouldn\u2019t call the federal announcement a \u201cstrategy,\u201d as it lacks measurable goals for tackling food inflation.<\/p>\n Charlebois argued the government also failed to address two major factors driving food inflation: reviewing all interprovincial trade barriers affecting food, and reforming the supply management system to encourage greater competitiveness among farmers.<\/p>\n While the government plans to help 4,000 provincially licensed food businesses obtain federal licenses, Charlebois said the process is costly and time-consuming and fails to address the lack of mutual recognition of processors between provinces.<\/p>\n \u201cThe heavy lifting has to come from the provinces,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing has been done so far.\u201d<\/p>\n Stuart Smyth, an agriculture professor at the University of Saskatchewan, noted there is still a lack of harmonized trucking regulations across provinces, which is driving up fuel and labour costs as some truckers face hours-long waits at provincial borders.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are not addressing the underlying factors behind what\u2019s causing the problem, more money isn\u2019t the solution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Is the government doing enough to boost competition?<\/p>\n Last week, Reambeault got her first Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit payment: more than $600. She\u2019s grateful, but that money covers only a week of groceries.<\/p>\n She wishes there were regulations limiting how much \u201cmassive\u201d grocers can raise prices and forcing them to absorb some of the costs of food products.<\/p>\n \u201cInflation should affect them more than it does us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Some Canadians told the Star that they felt the national food strategy does not go far enough, calling for stronger measures against the oligopolistic companies \u2014 Loblaws, Empire, Metro, Walmart and Costco \u2014 that dominate 75 per cent of the grocery market.<\/p>\n Michael Prophet, 37, who spends about $300 on groceries weekly for a family of three in Peterborough, said the government needs to slow down the expansion of big grocers or break up some of their assets.<\/p>\n None of those measures are included in the national food strategy, and most experts interviewed by the Star supported the decision not to pursue such a path.<\/p>\n Bronwyn Goodman, spokesperson for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said price caps may offer short-term relief but could also create unintended consequences, including weaker incentives for production and investment, higher prices for non-capped products, and potential product shortages.<\/p>\n