Food Prices To Increase In 2024 In Canada?

We can expect to pay even more for groceries as we enter February.

“Our teams have negotiated actively with our suppliers, mostly on the CPG (consumer packaged goods) side. The number of requests (for price increases by suppliers) is down pretty substantially from the highs of last year and the year before, that’s good news.”, said Metro CEO Eric La Flèche during a virtual conference, on Tuesday.

“The size of the demands is coming back to more normal levels. It can be too high in certain instances, so we are negotiating hard to bring it down,”

Each year, from late October to early February, the Canadian grocery industry engages in something known as the blackout period. During this time prices for specific national and private brand products are frozen.

During this period, suppliers demand more money for products to keep up with inflation, global supply chain issues, energy costs and international conflicts.

When the price freeze ends, the backlog of price increase requests by suppliers catches up.

Canadian grocers are coming out of the price freeze as Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says that he is contacting international grocers to inject more competition into the Canadian grocery industry.