The Competition Bureau will be investigating the factors impacting food affordability in a review of competition across Canada’s food supply chain.
The bureau will aim to identify competition concerns in production and processing, transportation and distribution, and retail pricing practices – which it determined as key areas. It will examine the process of growing, catching, transforming, and packaging food; moreover, it will assess how food is transported to retailers across the country. It will also investigate loyalty programs, pricing algorithms, shrinkflation, and skimpflation.
The body has called for Canadians and organizations with food supply chain experience to provide feedback, with interim competition commissioner Jeanne Pratt saying that inputs could help the bureau develop solutions supporting competition and affordability. Interested parties may submit feedback through an online form on the bureau’s website until July 31.
The Competition Bureau will also engage with groups and conduct roundtable discussions to identify competition problems, barriers, and areas of improvement in upcoming months. The body will then release a final report in spring 2027 that includes findings and recommendations to governments on improving competition throughout the food supply chain.
“The cost of food matters to all Canadians, and strong competition can help keep prices in check. Our examination builds on our earlier work in the retail grocery sector and will look at all parts of the food supply chain,” Pratt said in a statement.
The Competition Bureau confirmed that the food supply chain review was not a market study but a wider approach to understanding where the bureau needed to engage moving forward and where policymakers can act. It clarified that the bureau did not establish prices but investigated where markets are operating competitively and identified obstacles restricting competition.
It also confirmed that the study did not constitute a law enforcement and was not a response to complaints or wrongdoing allegations. Nonetheless, the bureau indicated that should evidence of anti-competitive behaviour surface, it would investigate the matter and act appropriately.
The Competition Bureau conducted its retail grocery market study, “Canada Needs More Grocery Competition”, in 2023. In 2024, the bureau obtained court orders to investigate Empire Company Limited's and George Weston Limited's use of property controls.