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.
‘Moderating Their Expectations’
However, even as Canadians continue to limit dining out, become more flexible on meat-eating, and put price first when grocery shopping, the report found that fewer Canadians now think food prices are going up at extremely high rates compared to the fall of 2024. At that time, 40.3 percent believed food prices had increased by more than 10 percent, with the share now down to 29.7 percent who believe that as of the most recent survey.
“Canadians continue to feel pressure on their food budgets, but Spring 2026 data suggests a slight shift from anxiety to adaptation,” said report co-author Armağan Özbilge of Dalhousie University.
“While affordability remains the dominant food value, consumers appear to be moderating their expectations for inflation through versatile strategies, from using food-rescue apps and seeking discounts to adjusting dietary choices and spending habits,” he added.
Part of dietary choices found in the survey include a considerable impact of Health Canada front-of-package nutrition symbols: 63.4 percent of Canadians said they’re less likely to purchase products that have a health warning symbol—which includes 25.4 percent who say they are significantly less likely to do so.
For his part, Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of Dalhousie’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, said changes in grocery shopping behaviour will “force the industry to adapt.”
“Affordability continues to define the Canadian food economy, but policy tools like front-of-package labelling are accelerating change at the shelf,” Charlebois said, adding that “consumers are making faster, more decisive choices, and that will force the industry to adapt—either through reformulation or repositioning.”
Reformulation in food policy means changing the actual product such as its ingredients and nutritional value, while repositioning refers to changing how a product is packaged, priced, presented, or marketed.
