They say they want to support local farmers and processors, keep dollars at home and protect jobs.

However, when standing in front of the grocery shelf, good intentions often give way to convenience and price.

That contradiction, however, seems to be fading, and geopolitics has a lot to do with it.

According to the latest NIQ (formerly NielsenIQ) retail data, sales of “Made in Canada” food products are up more than 10 per cent year-over-year as of September 2025, while U.S.-made products are down nearly nine per cent.

This trend has persisted for more than six months. In the world of consumer data, that’s not a blip — it’s a shift.

Canadians aren’t just saying they want to buy Canadian; they’re actually doing it.

Turn on the television any night of the week and there’s one recurring face: Donald Trump. Canadians, whether they follow U.S. politics closely or not, are constantly reminded of his America First message.

And consciously or not, they’re responding. Every fiery clip about tariffs, immigration or foreign competition reinforces the sense that Canada needs to rely on itself.

Buying Canadian food has become a quiet, patriotic act and a statement of self-reliance in an uncertain world.

When cross-border relations feel tense, the grocery store becomes a symbolic space of control. Each jar of Canadian jam, each bag of local flour, feels like a vote for stability and identity.

The “Buy Canadian” idea isn’t new, but for years, it mainly lived in our rhetoric.

The North American market blurred origins, and few shoppers bothered to read the fine print.

Since early 2025, however, both “Made in Canada” and “Product of Canada” categories, which differ in how much of the ingredients and processing are domestic, have shown consistent growth, while U.S. imports have posted negative sales for seven straight months.

This new grocery patriotism, however, also raises a difficult question: At what cost?

When consumers focus narrowly on national origin, market competition can narrow, too. If buying Canadian becomes more about sentiment than value, we risk paying more, sometimes for products that aren’t necessarily better or more sustainable.

It’s worth asking whether this wave of food nationalism, however well-intentioned, has contributed to higher prices. The more insulated our food market becomes, the greater the risk of inefficiency and complacency.

Canada’s agri-food sector is remarkably diverse and resilient, but we can’t grow or process everything efficiently. Pretending otherwise is economically naive.

Self-reliance must not become self-restriction. If this patriotic shift is to benefit Canadians, it needs to be guided by our comparative advantages rather than emotional reflexes.

Our grain, seafood, livestock and pulse sectors are world-class. Our innovation in food safety, traceability and clean processing is globally admired. That’s where national energy should go: doubling down on what we do best rather than trying to replace what others already do well.

Instead of equating “Canadian” with “expensive,” our food economy should aim to make “Canadian” synonymous with quality, efficiency and innovation. That’s the formula that will keep domestic production competitive while allowing consumers real choice at the shelf.

This is not a call to abandon local pride. In fact, far from it. A strong domestic food base is vital for resilience.

However, the challenge for Canada is to balance patriotic consumption with global pragmatism. We should buy Canadian when it makes sense, trade when it benefits us and stay open to the world.

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In fact, our food inflation rate has exceeded the general rate since December of last year, which is why food prices are on everyone’s mind.

We are seeing signs, though, that things are improving, and calmer seas are ahead as we enter the fall season.

Food inflation is often about context. Back in July 1978, while the inflation rate was at 9.4 per cent, food prices were increasing year-to-year by a whopping 20.2 per cent. That is by far the largest difference we have seen in the last 50 years. In the United States, food inflation at grocery stores is above 13 per cent. The United Kingdom’s food inflation rate in July was 12.7 per cent, much higher than Canada’s.

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The good news is that our food inflation appears to have peaked, or at least it’s under control, for now. Since April, our food inflation rate overall, which is now 9.2 per cent with both retail and service combined, has not yet reached 10 per cent. The highest month-to-month jump this year was in January at 1.4 per cent. That was the highest month-to-month jump since 2016.

In June, it was 0.1 per cent. July, however, saw another jump at 0.9 per cent. But since 2011, we have seen month-to-month increases exceeding 0.9 per cent a total of 12 times.

The bottom line is that the numbers are telling us that extreme volatility affecting food prices may be behind us. The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now been mostly absorbed by food supply chains.

Supply chains are also dealing with more predictable conditions related to COVID protocols. As governments continue safety measures, COVID-related rules and conditions are much more foreseeable, which is helping the food industry.

As consumers, we should expect more rebates, discounted products and loss leaders. It’s easier to offer deals when market conditions are more stable.

Consecutive lockdowns, implemented last-minute, took their toll and made life a nightmare for many in the food industry.

There are, however, some trouble spots at the grocery store. The first one is dairy.

The Canadian Dairy Commission has recommended a second unprecedented increase of 2.5 per cent, which began Sept. 1. Dairy farmers are getting 11 per cent more for their milk and butterfat since February. It’s great for farmers, but retail prices in the dairy section have skyrocketed by 25 per cent since February, in the case of fluid milk.

In essence, with record-breaking increases this year, dairy is literally pricing itself out of the market, and some dairy processors are adjusting. Lactalis, the largest milk buyer in the country, recently converted its Sudbury-based plant and will now solely manufacture plant-based products.

This points to where the market is going. While dairy farmers want more money, what seems to be underappreciated is that we will lose more farms due to an anemic demand for more expensive dairy products.

Bakery goods are another category in which we have seen higher prices. For many years, bakery goods were a non-story. This year, with more consolidation in processing, higher prices were expected. Typically, the correlation between commodity and retail prices is weak, but this year’s market conditions with grain scarcity have made access to some ingredients challenging. Many food verticals have been impacted by procurement issues. Canada’s Food Price Report in December predicted higher bakery and dairy prices, so it’s not necessarily a surprise.

If you were to compare the current inflationary cycle to a baseball game, we’re in the seventh-inning stretch. We also learned last week from Statistics Canada that grocery store sales dropped three per cent since January, so the market is tightening. More consumers are visiting non-traditional grocers like Walmart or Costco, or even dollar stores to make ends meet.

The days when people flocked to grocery stores at the beginning of the pandemic are long gone. Food sales are earned, more than ever. A sign of the times.

– Sylvain Charlebois is the Senior Director/Directeur Principal Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

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Consumers in Quebec who have been buying beef since 2015 can be part of the claim. The authorization application was filed in the Superior Court of Quebec and the group will hear from the courts later this year.

This claim doesn’t appear to surprise anyone. Food prices have been skyrocketing for a while, especially beef. According to Statistics Canada, while ground beef is up only four per cent since January 2015, most beef cuts have gone up 30 to 51 per cent. Only baby food and potatoes have seen sharper increases since 2015, so beef prices stand out.

Farmers have long complained about how little they get versus how retail prices behave at the grocery store. The correlation between the price farmers receive and retail prices has always been weak for most products. But consumers are noticing, and some groups are acting on concerns that something may not be quite right.

What’s perplexing about the claim is how it only aims at a handful of packers. If collusion did occur at the meat counter, many other companies would have arguably benefited from artificially inflated prices, including smaller abattoirs and, of course, retailers. Margins are significant on meat sales in food retailing, so grocers would have also increased profits as a result of higher wholesale prices.

The claim is likely inspired by what has happened in the United States in recent months. In December, the White House released a scathing report about how profits in the meat-packing sector have increased spectacularly – more than 300 per cent since the start of the pandemic.

JBS USA approved a US$52.5 million settlement in an American lawsuit in which the company was accused of conspiring to boost beef prices. They never admitted guilt in the deal, though. Cargill, National Beef Packing and Tyson Foods were also named in the case, the same companies mentioned in the Quebec claim. Of the four, only Tyson is publicly traded.

When it comes to price-fixing, the United States doesn’t fool around. When Congress and the White House have concerns, they act on them. Canada, not so much.

The bread price-fixing scandal that came to light back in 2017, when Loblaw admitted having participated in an alleged industry-wide operation, opened the door to some public criticism. In 2017, Loblaw CEO Galen Weston Jr. strategically threw everyone in the industry under the bus when admitting Loblaw’s involvement in a 14-year-long bread price-fixing scheme.

By admitting guilt and supporting the investigation, Loblaw received immunity from the Competition Bureau. The investigation didn’t provide evidence to prosecute anyone else, even though bread prices went up dramatically while the scheme was ongoing. 

But a group in Ontario has just been authorized to go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against the bread industry, so the beef claim is the second lawsuit we’ve seen in Canada in just a few months.

Some will say these class-action lawsuits are often launched by ambulance-chasing law firms looking for easy money or cheap publicity. Perhaps, but with higher food prices and Canada’s inability to forcefully monitor retail food prices, these allegations are likely going to make a valuable point.

Canada is really data poor compared to the United States. Statistics Canada doesn’t really report small details about what’s going on with all food categories, at least not as much as the U.S. Many believe that food inflation is underestimated in Canada since Statistics Canada only relies on a few grocers to measure food inflation.

With strong data, American institutions can and will use the stick. In Canada, we pursue companies in hopes they blink. What doesn’t help is how under-resourced the Competition Bureau is. This needs to change. 

At the heart of it all is how we measure greed, or at least how we should measure it. How much is too much, given the relatively small margins in the agri-food industry?

When a consumer walks away from a store with a $40 steak and willfully paid for it while many other options are offered, you can argue the grocer provided choices. But with higher food prices, our inability to measure or detect greed in the system will become more obvious. And consumer trust is at stake.

We need to act before skepticism in Canada grows even further.

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While McDonald’s recently announced its new McPlant products to be rolled out in 2021, Beyond Meat, which has been working with the fast-food chain for a while, was not even mentioned in the release. Beyond Meat did insist that it is still working with McDonald’s, but few seem to know what Beyond Meat’s role is.

It seems that McDonald’s broke up with Beyond Meat but forgot to tell the plant-based giant.

In September 2019, McDonald’s (Global) chose to run a pilot with its P.L.T. in Canada, in more than 40 restaurants in Southern Ontario. The P.L.T. stands for Plant, Lettuce, Tomatoes, co-designed with Beyond Meat.

The pilot was extended to April 2020. Once the pilot ended, however, there was nothing. Not one announcement, no tweet, nothing. Not one drop of news — until now. McDonald’s claimed that the plant-based burger received a positive response from Canadians, but when COVID-19 hit, one can only suspect the company got busy focusing on other things.

Many wondered whether the growing excitement around a plant-based diet would survive the pandemic. But now we know it has.

And that’s how McPlant was born. A questionable name, to be sure.

Meanwhile, Beyond Meat is adamant in saying it is still working with McDonald’s on various projects. Chances are, Beyond Meat is out, and McDonald’s, unsurprisingly, is moving forward with its own agenda.

McDonald’s has a massive network of more than 38,000 restaurants, much too big for Beyond Meat to supply. Few will be surprised to see McDonald’s integrate vertically to support a new line of products. McPlant will require supply chain alignment and changes in how outlets operate. For example, to do it right, regular patties cannot be cooked alongside McPlant patties. This is an unacceptable set up for vegans. McDonald’s will not make the same mistake as other chains have.

Most importantly though, Beyond Meat has been around for more than a decade but only got global attention a few years ago. As a dominant player in the field, Beyond Meat already has a past.

Many will link the plant-based movement, or some would say the fake meat phenomenon, to Beyond Meat. Its “better than beef” rhetoric has simply hurt the brand and the category.

In lieu of positioning the product as unique, or an alternative, Beyond Meat has become its own worst enemy by encouraging consumers to ditch meat.

The reality is that most Canadians still enjoy traditional animal proteins. It is very much a part of our heritage. Expecting Canadians to replace one with the other was unreasonable, and still is.

Beyond Meat’s stock reached a record US$195 a few weeks ago, but in light of lacklustre financial results and the recent announcement by McDonald’s, some analysts believe its stock could fall below $100. When terms like “fake meat” or “manufactured meat” are mentioned, the first company that comes to mind is Beyond Meat. This is its baggage, and McDonald’s knows it.

McDonald’s is now fully committed to offering plant-based foods. As other chains have done, McDonald’s is making its menu more inclusive. Consuming vegetable proteins is much more socially normalized now, and the pandemic hasn’t changed anything. Recently released statistics on plant-based diets show strong numbers. Not offering a plant-based option could lead many to pass on McDonald’s. Dietary inclusiveness is the way to go. Good call for McDonald’s. For McDonald’s Canada, specifically, it will be interesting.

The golden arches have always been one of Canada’s most formidable champions for agriculture. McPlant could be seen as a betrayal, especially for beef producers.

So, if you see more McDonald’s ads promoting Canadian beef, or even better, Canadian sustainable beef, don’t be surprised.

It’s all about playing nice with farmers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for Beyond Meat, it is clear that they no longer have McDonald’s as an ally. As such, the company may need to refine its value proposition to consumers.

Plant-based menus are about more choice, not about undermining the hard work of farmers who have provided us with quality meat products for decades.

The post Comment: McDonald’s makes plans for a new plant-based burger appeared first on Farmtario.

Strange days have found us, as normalcy is just not an option, for the safety of society, for us all. Public health officials and political leaders in Canada have been outstanding thus far. The media and reporters have been miracle workers, keeping the Canadian public well informed, even making some content open access. Thank goodness for them.

The not-so-graceful display of our collective journey to cope with this global threat has been the panic buying we have seen everywhere. People have been impulsively emptying shelves, everywhere, irrationally. We are all complicated human beings, and it’s hard to judge anyone since we are in unchartered waters.

People manage anxiety and risks differently, in their own way. As a society, we will go through cycles of emotions, compulsions and foolishness. We are in the worst of it, but it will end eventually.

With quarantines, cancellations, closures, and social distancing, home is, more than ever, the safest place for anyone to be. One positive thing coming out of this unfortunate episode could be to have everyone spending more time in the kitchen, a place in which fewer Canadians have spent time in recent years.

Evidence that suggests Canadians are spending less time in the kitchen is mounting, despite record cookbook sales. Canadians buy almost $100 million worth of cookbooks and food-related literature every year, but sales of tools and appliances used for cooking, like spatulas, mixers, and cooking bowls, have dropped steadily every year over the last five years. In 2019, sales for appliances and other items normally used in private kitchens dropped by two per cent. The average Canadian can now watch more than 250 hours of cooking or food related shows a week on television. A few networks are solely devoted to food. Still, cooking is just a fantasy for a growing number of Canadians.

Time has been unkind to kitchens. In a recent survey by Dalhousie University, for people born before 1946, 95 per cent ate meals prepared by parents or a caregiver at home when growing up. That percentage dropped significantly over the years. Millennials were not exposed to home cooked meals as much, and neither was Generation Z. About 64 per cent of Millennials regularly ate home-cooked meals when growing up, compared to 55 per cent for Gen Z. Compared to the older generation, that’s a whopping drop of 31 per cent and 40 per cent.

In other words, younger generations have a different appreciation for the kitchen and how food is prepared and consumed at home. The COVID-19 pandemic could potentially make younger generations more familiar with a space that seems like a fable to them.

More time at home can be a benefit for all of us. In that same survey conducted by Dalhousie University, 68.4 per cent of Canadians would like to spend more time preparing food at home. With the current public safety measures, many will be getting their wish.

Buying and reading a cookbook is like watching a good movie. We can project ourselves into the story, imagine we can do things we never thought possible, making us dream. Some cookbooks these days are masterpieces, works of art. But most cookbooks have been used as coffee table books or regifted. Such a shame. But COVID-19 could change everything.

As we are forced to spend more time at home, and with provisions safely nestled in cupboards and freezers, the opportunity to revisit our kitchens daily has never been so good. Equipped with unread cookbooks and underused kitchen tools, Canadians can now see some action in the kitchen.

We will get through this by sticking together and listening to our competent public health officials. In the meantime, let’s dust off our cookbooks and get reacquainted with the one room that can truly be considered the heart of anyone’s home: the kitchen.

– Sylvain Charlebois is the Senior Director/Directeur Principal Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

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It’s a move that will help them compete with Amazon, and Walmart will begin offering its service in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and southern California.

Why it matters: Grocery home delivery service is a growing phenomenon but convenience must be balanced with other considerations like sustainability.

Walmart intends to cover 75 per cent of the entire U.S. this year. Customers need to buy at least US$35 worth of products and this service, of course, includes food items. Most retailers across North America are doubling their e-commerce strategies, trying to catch up with the modern consumer’s pursuit for higher convenience. And Canadian grocers are not staying idle.

Food deliveries are not new in Canada. They’ve been happening for decades. What is new, though, is the scalability of operations, which banks on speed and reliability. Online food delivery programs are all about time and precision.

Amazon set the benchmark and everyone else is following. Sobeys recently announced its “Voilà” service, a highly appropriate, bilingual spin for a company desperately trying to execute an online strategy which requires some intense centralization. In order to do so, it’s investing close to $100 million on a new distribution centre north of Toronto that is the size of 15 hockey rinks. Sobeys is hoping to capitalize on its partnership with United Kingdom-based Ocado, known for its knowledge in artificial intelligence and cybernetics.

Loblaws, on the other hand, has been working internally on a new online model while expressing its content on its “click and collect” service, offered now in more than 700 stores across the country.

That said, Loblaws and Instacart already do offer grocery delivery to millions of Canadian homes. Some movement has been reported at Metro as well. Costco is in the middle of its southern Ontario pilot, which could prove interesting since its sales now include over $14 billion worth of food in Canada each year.

Having someone else to carry all those bulk food items from the store to your home can be a very appealing proposition for an ageing population, or even for people living on second or third floors of buildings. Blazingly convenient.

Canada’s online shopping in food retail represents roughly 1.8 per cent of the $120 billion market — a drop really. But some analysts suggest Canada could catch up to the U.S. by 2025, and seven per cent of all food sold in the U.S. at retail is purchased online. It still may not look like much, but seven per cent would be almost $9 billion worth of food. Minus the non-food sales, that sum is almost equal to the food sold by one of the country’s top grocers, Metro. With laser-thin margins, generating more online revenues will be key.

Grocers have realized for a while now that embedded into a successful delivery model is the illusion of a free service to consumers. Selling food online and increasing profits while the customers remain convinced they’re getting deals is a feat that can only be achieved through algorithms and analytics, an art Amazon has mastered for decades.

Most often, the food industry will go after the mighty dollar without thinking twice about how a newly deployed strategy can impact the environment and our health.

Think about it. Fast food with little or no nutritional value, ready-to-eat products and meal kits with excessive packaging – all have provided more convenience while undermining our ability as consumers to serve the planet or safeguard our wellness as individuals. It’s been like that for decades, but things are slowly changing due to an ever-empowered, social network-savvy marketplace.

The sudden, collective backlash against plastics was violent for the industry and came out of nowhere, but it had to happen. As a society, we realize how our way of life is no longer sustainable, in many ways. It is more than reasonable for consumers to ask the industry to comply with societal expectations as soon as possible.

Convenience is the main box being ticked when looking at home delivery service, but it can’t stop there. Grocers will need to think about ways to go after our business and our grocery money while keeping us and our planet healthy. More choice for consumers may be desirable, especially when food is involved, but it can’t come at a huge cost for us all.

The post Opinion: Delivering on delivery appeared first on Farmtario.

The report, which took three years to prepare, presents the ideal diet for the 21st century and for meat eaters, the report is no reason to jump for joy. The report suggests that for red meat, one burger a week would be everyone’s quota.

Some fish and chicken are also added to one’s weekly intake of animal proteins, but plant-based proteins fill out the rest of the prescribed diet, recommending nuts and a good helping of legumes every day in lieu of meat. With one glass of milk a day, the diet has room for 31 grams of sugar and about 50 grams worth of oils, such as olive oil. These recommendations align with the newly released Canada Food Guide’s approach to proteins, a new umbrella category that combines and de-emphasizes dairy and meat, while recommending more plant-based proteins.

But, while the report underscores the importance of global food security, it falls short on a few fronts.

For one, it does not really tell us anything we did not already know. Numerous studies, for instance, have already pointed to the value of plant-based dieting and the reduction of food waste, another noble recommendation from the report. And while the report is full of good intentions, the clinical fingerprints of the medical doctors, environmental scientists and nutritionists who put it together are all over the report.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with like-minded individuals writing a dietary road map like a tedious monograph, but it makes their approach feel inauthentic to the layperson. In other words, the report fails to recognize the human nature of our society, as there’s nothing more human than food.

Culinary traditions have influenced nations, clans, and families for thousands of years. Food is intrinsically powerful; it either can bring us together through meals and celebrations, or it can tear us apart through embargoes on foodstuffs and spark quarrels between nations.

For those of us in the non-elite masses, there is a significant difference between needs and wants. We all know we need to eat veggies and adopt a healthy lifestyle, but many do not for a variety of reasons; access, affordability and convenience are factors influencing consumer behaviour every day. While vegetarian and vegan options have been declining in price, their still-high costs make them inaccessible to many and, regardless of whether the impression is true or not, plant-based dieting is almost seen as an elitist way of life right now. This will need to change. But the report makes no mention of how these factors should be addressed or change over time.

Food diversity is what defines us all, in a way. Entire civilizations have been built on agricultural traditions that forge our varying tastes and kitchen talents. The report, however, shows little respect for communities where meat plays an integral part in their way of life.

It does not recognize that meat can be grown more sustainably, with efforts such as the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and the emergence of cultured meat. Science is also pushing industry to think differently about how to produce meat, and so it’s a clear gap that, of the 37 authors of the report, few had backgrounds in economics, policy, or animal, plant, or soil sciences.

In the past year alone, countless studies have beat the same plant-based drum, and this latest report just adds to the noise. Reminding the world that our habits ought to change has merit, but it can be overdone. The plant-based diet narrative is overpowering everything else, including remembering where we came from. As we progress as a society and understand how we can feed more people on this planet, it is critical to value our food heritage, too. If we don’t, a report like The Lancet’s will be dismissed as haughty advocacy — and it shouldn’t.

Sylvain Charlebois is a professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Faculties of Management and Agriculture, Dalhousie University.

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