Media Release -- Minister Champagne Reports on the Initial Commitments from the Five Largest Grocers to Stabilize Food Prices

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Hey YODLers,

ICYMI -- earlier today, Minister Champagne issued an update on government and industry's collaborative approach to stabilize food prices.

https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2023/10/minister-champagne-reports-on-the-initial-commitments-from-the-five-largest-grocers-to-stabilize-food-prices.html

Here's a quick recap of what you need to know:

The focus is on 5 measures:


1 -- Grocery Retail immediate measures:

  • aggressive discounts across a basket of key food products
  • price freezing
  • price matching


2 -- Consumer Advocacy:

  • enhance the capacity of the Office of Consumer Affairs by establishing the Grocery Task Force
  • priorities will be to monitor, on a monthly basis, the grocers' commitments and actions taken by other key players in the food industry, including manufacturers
  • investigate and uncover practices that hurt consumers, such as "shrinkflation" and "dequaliflation."
  • also increasing the investment in the Contributions Program for Non-Profit Consumer and Voluntary Organizations.


3 -- Grocery Code of Conduct:

  • accelerate work to establish a Grocery Code of Conduct that will support fairness and transparency across the industry


4 -- Food Data:

  • the government will improve the availability and accessibility of data on food prices and the cost breakdown throughout the Canadian agri-food supply chain
  • government and industry will launch a food price data hub to better share existing data and new research on the price of food in Canada.
  • data will be provided through a partnership involving Statistics Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and key partners in the food system.
  • In the press conference, Minister Champagne referenced gathering more data about prices through the food chain and referred to the US method of capturing data (food dollar series). Here is a link that may help explain the approach in the US


5 -- Amendments to the Competition Act

For more details on today's update, you can check out the official news release from the Feds --> https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2023/10/minister-champagne-reports-on-the-initial-commitments-from-the-five-largest-grocers-to-stabilize-food-prices.html

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Thank you Jamil for sharing this. It is about time that the grocery stores were called up to change some things about the industry!

As a CPG company I have not changed my retail prices in 3 years as I know what the market will bear, and I have had to swallow those margins knowing that I would lose sales if I changed my pricing.

The profits from the top 5 is astounding, they need to wake up and see the food insecurity that is on the rise in our country and offer more solutions.

Sidenote: Minister Champagne would be a great name for a business. :)

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Hey Trisha,

Love your input. And thanks for sharing the backstory of how you're trying to navigate pricing for your CPG company. I imagine a lot of SMEs are in a similar position as you, which hopefully makes news like this encouraging.

I'm really curious to see how this evolves and progresses. Also, definitely agree about the business name! This made me laugh.

Lastly, in case anyone is interested, here's a link to Eat My Shortbread's product line --> https://eatmyshortbread.com/collections/all-products

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