Grocery prices in Canada are 27% higher than they were five years ago. In May 2026, food purchased from stores rose 4.3% year over year — outpacing headline inflation at 3.2% — according to Statistics Canada.
Fresh vegetables jumped 9.0%, tomatoes alone surged 45.2%, and beef continued climbing at 13.3%. For households already stretched by rent, debt, and cross-border family obligations, every $20 increase at the checkout is felt twice — once at home and once in the transfer that gets delayed or reduced.
In this report, we'll be exploring:
- Which food categories are rising fastest and why
- How far prices have actually moved since the pandemic peak
- Food insecurity rates among newcomers and low-income Canadians
- How rising grocery bills compete with remittances and family support
- The supply chain, tariff, and weather forces behind the numbers
- What households can realistically do to adapt
How much have grocery prices actually risen since the pandemic?
The worst of Canada's inflation wave may have passed, but the price level never came back down.
A lower inflation rate does not mean prices are falling. It means they are rising more slowly than before. And for food, "more slowly" still means faster than nearly every other household expense.
The Bank of Canada noted in February 2026 that grocery prices had risen roughly 22% since 2022, while other consumer prices went up about 13% on average over the same stretch.
TD Economics put it even more bluntly — grocery prices in Canada are now over 30% higher than in 2019. Had pre-pandemic trends continued, that increase would have been only about 17%.
The average Canadian household is spending an estimated $1,600 more per year on groceries compared to pre-pandemic levels (TD Economics).
A family of four may spend up to $17,571 on food in 2026 — an increase of nearly $995 from the year before, according to Canada's Food Price Report 2026 from Dalhousie University.
A newcomer who arrived in 2021 or 2022 built a financial plan around wages that no longer stretch the same way. The $150 grocery run is now $190. A basic meat-and-produce shop has become a budgeting event.
| Grocery Price Change | Measure |
|---|---|
| Grocery price increase since 2022 | ~22% (Bank of Canada) |
| Grocery price increase since 2019 | ~30% (TD Economics) |
| Food price increase over 5 years | 27% (Food Price Report 2026) |
| Projected family food spending in 2026 | Up to $17,571 |
| Additional annual cost per family of four | ~$995 |
| Headline CPI, May 2026 | 3.2% |
| Food-from-stores CPI, May 2026 | 4.3% |
Why does food cost more than the inflation rate suggests?
Consumers don't experience inflation as an annual percentage. They experience it as the price on the shelf. And the shelf price sits on top of four years of accumulated increases — not just this month's change.
Higher prices build on a larger base
When beef goes from $12 a kilogram to $15 over two years, a subsequent 5% annual increase adds $0.75 on top of the already-elevated base.
The percentage sounds moderate. The dollar amount doesn't feel moderate at all.
Multiply that pattern across hundreds of items in a weekly grocery basket, and the gap between official CPI and lived experience becomes obvious.
Food costs affect households differently
The Bank of Canada's February 2026 analysis estimated that households spend around 11% of their budget on groceries. However, that average hides enormous variation.
For low-income households, larger families, newcomers, and renters in expensive cities, the grocery share can be considerably higher because fixed costs (rent, debt, transit) leave less flexible income.
Food inflation hits lower incomes harder
According to the same Bank of Canada analysis, households in the lowest income quintile spent more than 27% of their disposable income on food and non-alcoholic beverages in 2024, compared with just 5% for households in the highest quintile.
That five-to-one ratio is where inflation becomes regressive. A 4.3% increase on groceries is a minor inconvenience for a household earning $180,000.
For a household earning $35,000 and paying $1,800 in rent, it is the difference between a full fridge and a careful rationing exercise.
What is driving grocery prices higher in 2026?
Food inflation does not begin at the checkout line. It builds across farms, processors, wholesalers, shipping lanes, currency markets, packaging suppliers, and retail pricing strategies.
The Bank of Canada found that it takes between six and nine months for cost pressures to be fully reflected in grocery prices — so the inflation consumers saw in early 2026 was largely the result of shocks that appeared in late 2024 and early 2025.
Several forces are working simultaneously.
Energy costs
Fuel and fertilizer represent more than half the cost of producing an acre of a crop like corn, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's National Food Security Strategy.
Gasoline prices rose 33.2% year over year in May 2026, driven by supply disruption tied to the Middle East conflict.
Energy feeds into every link of the food chain — farm production, cold storage, trucking, packaging, and restaurant operations.
Currency exposure
Canada imports a large share of its food, especially during winter.
When the Canadian dollar weakened against the USD in late 2024, the cost of imported produce, processed foods, coffee, chocolate, and confectionery all rose.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reports that Canada imported over one-third of the $9.8 billion farmers spent on fertilizers in 2023 — another cost amplified by exchange rate weakness.
Households that rely on currency exchange for remittances already understand how dollar movements erode purchasing power on both sides of a transfer.
Trade disruption
The United States remains Canada's largest agri-food trading partner, accounting for over 61% of exports and more than half of imports.
In early 2025, tariffs and counter-tariffs between the two countries raised costs for imported ingredients, animal feed, and processed goods.
Tomato prices surged 45.2% year over year in May 2026 — partly because of reduced planted acreage in Mexico following earlier U.S. tariff pressure and poor weather.
Climate events
Increasingly severe weather continues to disrupt agricultural production worldwide.
Droughts, floods, heat waves, and reduced harvests in California, Mexico, South America, and parts of Europe all affect the price of produce, grains, coffee, cocoa, and animal feed that ends up in Canadian stores.
Supply chain lag
The Bank of Canada's analysis confirmed that much of the 2025 rebound in grocery inflation came from cost pressures building in late 2024 — not from sudden retail markups.
A cost shock today (fuel spike, poor harvest, new tariff) may not hit the shelf for six to nine months. That lag explains why food inflation can remain stubborn even when headline CPI appears to moderate.
Which food categories are rising fastest?
The pressure is not evenly distributed. Some categories are absorbing far more cost increases than others, and those categories shape how different households experience the grocery run.
Statistics Canada's May 2026 CPI data shows the unevenness clearly.
| Food Category | Year-Over-Year Change (May 2026) |
|---|---|
| Fresh or frozen beef | +13.3% |
| Fresh vegetables | +9.0% |
| Fresh fruit | +5.3% |
| Tomatoes | +45.2% |
| Food purchased from stores (all) | +4.3% |
| Headline CPI (all items) | +3.2% |
Meat
Beef is especially disruptive because it affects not only steaks and roasts, but also ground beef, frozen meals, prepared foods, and restaurant menus.
Canada's Food Price Report 2026 expected meat prices to rise 5-7% — faster than most other categories. Chicken prices are also projected to rise substantially in 2026 as consumers switch away from beef, pushing demand (and prices) onto poultry.
Produce
Fresh vegetables rose 5.5% month over month in May 2026 alone — the largest May increase since 2008. Broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and lettuce all contributed.
Weather disruption, reduced acreage, tariffs, and exchange rates move through produce prices fast because fresh food has shorter storage life and less room for inventory smoothing.
Imported foods
The Bank of Canada identified imported processed food costs as a major driver of the 2025 upswing in grocery inflation.
For Canada's immigrant and newcomer communities — households that may buy more imported rice, lentils, spices, halal meat, tropical produce, tea, coffee, sauces, and regional staples — the inflation experience can diverge sharply from the national average basket.
A household cooking South Asian, Filipino, Nigerian, or Latin American food is exposed to import-layer risks that a household buying mostly domestic products may not feel as strongly.
How does grocery market concentration affect prices?
Global shocks explain much of food inflation, but domestic market structure determines how those shocks reach the shelf.
The top four grocery chains in Canada control at least 72% of the national market share, according to Canada's Food Price Report 2026.
The Competition Bureau's retail grocery market study argued that more competition can lead to lower prices, more convenience, and more innovation. Its 2023 final report recommended policy action to improve competition in Canadian grocery retail.
The Grocery Code of Conduct became fully operational in January 2026. Whether enforcement will meaningfully change pricing behavior remains an open question.
For consumers — especially those in suburban and smaller urban markets with fewer store options — concentration means less negotiating power, fewer private-label alternatives, and higher transportation costs to reach a cheaper retailer.
A newcomer household in a high-rent Toronto neighbourhood or a suburb without a discount grocer faces a structural affordability penalty that CPI averages do not capture.
How bad is food insecurity in Canada right now?
The numbers are at their worst recorded level. Statistics Canada's 2024 Canadian Income Survey found that about 9.8 million people — 24.0% of Canadians — lived in households reporting some form of food insecurity.
| Food Insecurity Indicator | Figure |
|---|---|
| Canadians in food-insecure households (2024) | 9.8 million (24%) |
| Moderately food insecure | 11.9% |
| Severely food insecure | 6.5% |
| One-parent families with food insecurity | 44.4% |
| Racialized groups | 30.4% (vs. 21.0% non-racialized) |
| Indigenous people aged 15+ | 34.7% (vs. 22.4% non-Indigenous) |
| Children in food-insecure households | ~2.5 million |
Food Banks Canada's 2025 HungerCount report adds another dimension.
In 2025, 34% of food bank clients were newcomers who had been in Canada for 10 years or less — a figure that has stayed elevated since the pandemic era. Nearly 70% of food bank clients lived in market-rent housing, and 18% were employed (up from 12% in 2019).
That last number deserves a pause.
Nearly one in five people visiting food banks in Canada has a job. Rising food costs are not hitting only the unemployed. They are hitting working Canadians whose wages have not kept pace with rent, groceries, transit, and debt.
For newcomer households specifically, the overlap between food insecurity and cross-border family support creates a uniquely sharp bind.
A newcomer paying market rent, earning entry-level wages, building credit, and trying to send money home is carrying obligations on both sides of the border simultaneously.
How does food inflation affect households that send money abroad?
Remittances are often discussed as international transfers, but they begin as domestic household cash flow.
A person sends money abroad only after earning income in Canada and covering Canadian living costs. When food prices rise, the remittance decision tightens.
The effect plays out in several ways.
1. Reduced send amounts
A household spending an extra $80-$150 per month on groceries may reduce the amount sent to family in India, the Philippines, Pakistan, or Nigeria — especially when rent, debt, and transit are fixed.
2. Shifted frequency
Some senders move from larger monthly transfers to smaller, more frequent ones as they manage cash flow week by week rather than month by month.
3. Higher fee sensitivity
When the grocery bill is up, a $5 fee or a 1-2% weaker exchange rate feels less abstract. It becomes part of the trade-off between putting food on the table in Canada and supporting family abroad.
4. Delayed transfers
Rather than cutting an amount, some senders push the transfer to a later date — after rent clears, after groceries are bought, after the pay cycle settles. A sender who consistently transferred on the 1st of the month might drift to the 10th during high-cost months.
What more?
For a household that cooks food tied to home-country cuisine — dishes that rely on imported rice, lentils, spices, tropical produce, halal or specialty meats — the inflation experience can be sharper than what the average CPI basket reflects.
The same household is also converting Canadian dollars into INR, PKR, PHP, or NGN — so currency volatility compounds the pressure from both directions.
RemitBee's exchange rate markup of 0.3%-0.5% (with zero fees on transfers over $500 CAD via Interac e-Transfer, EFT, or bill payment) is built for repeat senders who cannot afford to lose value on every transaction.
RemitBee is registered with FINTRAC as a money services business that follows Canadian anti-money laundering requirements, and serves over 200,000 Canadians sending money to 100+ countries.
What can Canadian households do about rising grocery costs?
Households rarely respond to inflation in just one way.
They stack small adjustments — switching stores, buying private-label, cooking in larger batches, comparing unit prices, reducing restaurant spending, buying frozen produce — until the budget works.
But adaptation has limits. Some common responses and their real-world constraints:
| Strategy | Limitation |
|---|---|
| Switching from beef to chicken | Chicken prices often rise as consumers shift demand. |
| Buying frozen produce | Requires freezer space, which many renters lack. |
| Shopping at discount grocers | Depends on transit access, time, and location. |
| Cooking at home more | Requires suitable schedules, kitchens, and housing conditions. |
| Using loyalty programs and flyers | Savings typically offset only part of higher food costs. |
| Buying in bulk | Needs upfront cash, storage, and reliable transportation. |
A family with a car, a large freezer, stable work hours, and flexible storage can respond differently from a newcomer to Canada who is renting a room, riding transit, working shifts, and sharing a kitchen.
The official CPI measures national average inflation. But inflation is personal.
A household's actual inflation rate depends on what they buy, where they shop, how they cook, and which items in their basket are rising fastest.
For budgeting-conscious Canadians, tracking personal grocery spend month over month is more useful than tracking the national CPI.
What should we expect for the rest of 2026?
The Bank of Canada's April 2026 outlook projected that food inflation would ease slightly but warned that high fuel, fertilizer, and import costs would keep pressure elevated throughout the year.
Canada's Food Price Report 2026 forecast overall food prices rising 4-6% — not a relief story, but a slower-burn version of the same problem.
Three risks stand out for the remainder of 2026.
| Risk | Why it affects food prices |
|---|---|
| Energy volatility | Gasoline drove the May 2026 CPI acceleration. Fuel costs feed into farming, trucking, cold storage, packaging, and restaurant operations. |
| Climate disruption | Droughts, heat waves, floods, and poor harvests in California, Mexico, South America, and Australian supplier regions can move produce, grain, coffee, cocoa, and feed prices quickly. |
| Trade policy uncertainty | Tariffs, U.S. supply conditions, border changes, and Canadian dollar movements all affect imported food costs. Canada's food system is deeply integrated with the U.S. and global suppliers. |
The practical implication for Canadian households — especially those managing remittances alongside domestic expenses — is that food affordability should be treated as a permanent part of financial planning, not a temporary shock that will pass on its own.
The $150 grocery run that became $190 is unlikely to return to $150. However, every dollar preserved through lower transfer fees, better exchange rates, and smarter budgeting tools is a dollar that stays in the household — available for food, rent, savings, or the next transfer home.
Keep more value in every transfer
When groceries, rent, and living costs keep climbing, every percentage point on an exchange rate and every hidden fee erodes the household budget from the other side. RemitBee was built for Canadian households that send money internationally and need:
- Zero fees on transfers over $500 CAD
- Exchange rate markup of 0.3%-0.5% with no hidden charges
- Real-time tracking and transparent pricing before every send
- Transfers to 100+ countries including India, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, and Bangladesh
Send money with RemitBee and protect the value that food inflation is trying to take.
References
- Statistics Canada. Consumer Price Index, May 2026. The Daily. Released June 22, 2026.
- Statistics Canada. Consumer Price Index, monthly percentage change, food — Table 18-10-0004-03. Updated June 2026.
- Bank of Canada. The Resurgence of Food Inflation in 2025. Sparks at the Bank. February 2026.
- TD Economics. Canada's Food Price Misery Has Company South of the Border. 2025.
- Dalhousie University Agri-Food Analytics Lab. Canada's Food Price Report 2026. December 2025.
- Statistics Canada. Canadian Income Survey, 2024. The Daily. Released April 29, 2026.
- Food Banks Canada. HungerCount 2025 — Overall Findings. 2025.
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. National Food Security Strategy. June 2026.
- Competition Bureau Canada. Retail Grocery Market Study. Government of Canada.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAO Food Price Index. May 2026 release.
- Bank of Canada. What Drives Up the Price of Groceries. July 2024.
- Statistics Canada. Food Price Data Hub. Updated 2026.
- PROOF — University of Toronto. New Data on Household Food Insecurity in 2024. May 2025.
