Canadians are increasingly anxious about food affordability with many predicting prices will continue to rise in the year ahead as trade tensions with the United States persist, a new report suggests.
Nearly 85 percent of Canadians who participated in the Canadian Food Sentiment Index published this week by Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab say food prices have risen over the last 12 months.
The index is a bi-annual research project conducted by Dalhousie University’s agri-food analytics lab to capture public perceptions on food pricing and grocery shopping habits.
The spring 2025 survey discovered a notable shift in how food inflation is anticipated to evolve in the next year, as Canada navigates uncertain territory amid trade disputes with the United States.
A total of 28.5 percent of Canadians expect inflation to rise above 10 percent, up from the 18.6 percent who expected such an increase last fall.
More than 17 percent of respondents expect inflation to rise 8 to 10 percent and 27 percent of those surveyed anticipate a rise of 5 to 7 percent. An additional 20 percent say food inflation will go up 2 to 4 percent while only 7 percent expected inflation to remain below 2 percent.
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The rising cost of food was the biggest worry for most of the people surveyed, surpassing concerns about the cost of housing, utilities, transportation, and child care. More than 84 percent of the approximately 3,000 respondents identified food prices as the budgetary item that has increased most over the past year.
Food expert and report co-author Sylvain Charlebois told The Epoch Times he was not surprised by the increasing concern about food prices.
“Food is one of the most visible indicators of inflation,” said Charlebois, who is the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab. “Every trip to the grocery store is a reminder of how much further a dollar doesn’t go. With rising housing and debt costs, food becomes the first place where people feel squeezed—and they’re paying attention.”
Charlebois and report co-author Stacey Taylor, an assistant professor of business analytics at Cape Breton University, identified the Canada-U.S. trade war as a significant factor in consumers’ attitudes.
“Canadians are increasingly aware that trade tensions—especially tariffs and countermeasures—have downstream effects on prices and product availability,” Charlebois said. “The ‘Buy Canadian’ sentiment we’re seeing is partly driven by this unease. People are connecting the dots between policy and their pocketbooks.”
Taylor noted consumers are facing significantly more uncertainty now than they were six months ago when the fall edition of the index was released. At that time, Canadians were beginning to see “the light at the end of the tunnel” for food inflation, she said.
“But a lot has happened since then, particularly with the trade war,” Taylor told The Epoch Times. “There are a lot of worries and fear on how the trade war will impact food prices, food security, food budgets, as well as uncertainty on if the tariffs will go up or down. So, as long as the trade war persists, the worries will persist.”
Shopping Behaviours
The newly released index also identified two new trends. Canadians have become more inclined to purchase from independent grocery stores and buy local products than ever before.
There has been a 10 percentage point rise in the number of Canadians indicating they “always” or “often” buy local foods, now totalling 43.5 percent, and more shoppers are opting for grass-fed beef and cage-free eggs.
“Younger Canadians are leading this charge, with more than half regularly purchasing local,” the report authors wrote, noting that while 53.5 percent of Gen Z focus on local food shopping, Baby Boomers were similarly minded at 50.5 percent.
Despite the increasing support for local food, the amount of groceries purchased by Canadians is decreasing.
The index found a reduction in per capita food consumption compared to the previous year, while expenditures at restaurants have seen a minor increase.
Affordability was the top consideration for Canadians when buying food. Forty-two percent identified cost as their top consideration when grocery shopping followed by nutrition at 25 percent and taste at 18 percent.
The index revealed an increase in the number of consumers purchasing bulk food products, along with a slight rise in shoppers opting for fewer non-essential goods. The number of Canadians using coupons, switching to cheaper brands, and shopping at cheaper stores had dipped slightly, however.
“Overall, the data suggests a nuanced shift: while some Frugal behaviours have declined others like bulk buying and reducing non-essentials are gaining traction,” the authors said. “These results might indicate that many consumers had already adopted frugal behaviours in response to rising food prices and had already reached their limit, indicating a strategic rebalancing of household budgets.”
