Canada's Competition Bureau wants to find out why food prices are so high these days. To help find an answer, the bureau has launched an investigation into all aspects of the food supply chain.

“We know that food affordability matters more than ever for Canadians. We know that competition plays a really important role in keeping prices in check and increasing choice and quality,” Brad Callaghan, associate deputy commissioner at Competition Bureau Canada told FoodNX in an interview.

This will build off a study conducted in 2023 that concluded Canada needs more grocery store competition.

“We know that retail is really just the end of a long chain, and so we’re taking a look up the supply chain now . . . to try to just get a bit of a bigger field of view as to what role competition is playing into the price that ultimately shows up on the retail shelf,” Callaghan said.

“We know that the price of groceries is still getting higher, and we want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to understand what role competition may be playing in driving that.”

"In line" with recent strategy from PM

The probe is not related to the food security strategy announcement made in early June by Prime Minister Mark Carney, but “it’s obviously in line with that: our work is independent, and this is something that we have been thinking about. We had a specific initiative on retail grocery but we’ve been keeping a close eye on this.”

“It’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while,” he said.

The bureau will focus on three parts of the supply chain: production and processing; transportation and distribution, “and then finally on retail pricing. We don’t want to repeat the market study that we did in 2023 but obviously there are specific issues that we’re calling out and asking for more information on. We’re interested in things that might affect price, quality or quantity of products; everything from loyalty programs and the role that may play to algorithmic pricing, and then shrinkflation and skimpflation,” Callaghan explained.

According to the Competition Bureau website, “shrinkflation is the practice of reducing the size or quantity of a product while keeping the same price, and skimpflation is the practice of reducing the quality of a product while keeping the same price.”

The bureau is calling for feedback from any interested parties until July 31. It is casting a wide net in order to get to the truth, Callaghan said.

“And so that could be everything from the role that regulations or policies may be playing in terms of making it more difficult for companies to come in and compete to the levels of concentration that are currently in place in some of these markets and if, of course, there’s business conduct that we become aware of in the course of the study, it may be something for other parts of our organization to look into in the future.”

While he wouldn’t get into specifics, Callaghan wants to hear from industry associations, farmers or fishers, and academics, to name a few examples.

“We’re really starting with a broad call for information to hear from the public, and primarily people who are actively working or have experience in the food supply chain. If your readers have experience; if they work as a producer, a processor in wholesaling distribution, we want to hear from those people and get a better sense of the questions that we asked in our call for information.”