An employee stocks a display at a grocery store in Toronto on March 12, 2026. The Canadian Press/Chris Young
Canadians are changing their shopping habits to deal with ongoing high grocery prices, with more than 81 percent of respondents in a new survey saying food was the household expense that has gone up the most over the past year, far ahead of housing costs, transport, entertainment, utilities, or other expenses.
The survey results are contained in the latest Canadian Food Sentiment Index from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab and were released April 28. It found that the majority of Canadians are adapting to high grocery prices by shopping differently and making decisions on what to buy primarily based on price.
“Cost continues to outweigh all other food values by a wide margin,” the report reads, adding that “affordability continues to dominate how Canadians think about food—far outweighing nutrition, taste, or sustainability.”
This is concerning, according to one expert who helped complete the report.
“Affordability far outranking nutrition shows that Canadians are under significant financial stress to provide healthy meals for their families, which is concerning,” Stacey Taylor, a research fellow with the lab, said in a release summarizing and analyzing the survey results.
Survey
The survey contained in the report was conducted online Feb. 23 and 24 of this year among approximately 3,000 Canadians and asked questions about their perception of food prices, shopping habits, and other related topics.
Specifically, it found that 45.5 percent of respondents said affordability is the most important consideration for them, while 24.9 said nutrition is most important and 15.6 percent said taste takes top spot. With affordability the primary deciding factor, shopping habits are also adapting.
The survey found that 44.4 percent of Canadians said they are seeking out more discounts and sales. Some Canadians also said they are making more use of coupons, spending more time looking for deals online, choosing stores that have cheaper prices, and switching to generic or less costly brands of food.
The survey also found that 8.5 percent of Canadians are using food-surplus apps, a new category added into the survey questions this year. These apps help customers find unsold or near-expiry food offered at discounted prices that would otherwise have to be thrown out. The report analyzes this trend as “indicating growing awareness of alternative savings channels.”
Another notable finding in the survey was that fewer Canadians are eating fully unrestricted diets, and more are cutting back on meat and shifting toward more flexible “flexitarian” eating habits, a change the report says may be partly driven by higher meat prices.
“The drop in an omnivorous diet in favour of adaptable diets such as the flexitarian gives insight on how Canadians are managing their food budgets in difficult times,” Taylor said.
Respondents reported spending an average of $22.96 more per month on food than a year ago in February 2025, marking a 4.6 percent increase, and 34 percent said they had to dip into savings or borrow money to pay for food in the past year, which the report points to as “ongoing financial vulnerability among some households, for whom food has now become a critical budgetary concern.”
Results also indicated that Canadians are continuing to limit how much they dine out and limiting such expenses as grocery bills rise.
