By Tom Parkin
February 9th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
Not all food prices are rising,. Maybe some can be fixed, but specific problems require specific actions.
What’s driving food inflation
Price increase, Dec 2024-Dec 2025, among foods increasing more than 10 per cent
Food inflation is being driven by specific products, according to Statistics Canada data released last week, suggesting specific supply chain and input costs are the culprits behind food inflation, not macroeconomics.
The price of a litre of milk increased just 1.2 per cent in a year. White bread is up 2.3 per cent. Eggs are down 1.1 per cent. But other items are up — some by a lot.
No solution to food inflation from Poilievre or Carney
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has done a good job complaining about food inflation. And he’s not wrong that food inflation is higher in Canada that other G7 nations.
But his analysis of the problem doesn’t fit the evidence. Inflation’s attack has not been even across the board, as it would be if caused by taxation or money supply, the only two sources Poilievre has ever considered. And there’s no way he doesn’t know this.
Nor will Mark Carney’s $10 billion grocery tax credit do anything to fix the drivers of food inflation. It’s a very expensive talking point that takes money from health care or increases the deficit. And it’s not possible Mark Carney doesn’t know this.
Tackling inflation, a targeted fight?
Inflation being specific isn’t easy politics. Because it doesn’t make for easy solutions.
The cost of coffee is way up. So is beef and chicken. And certain produce. If governments are really interested in tackling food inflation — which has recently been the driving force in broader inflation — it’s going to take an approach focused on the specific problems.
Part of the reason for higher coffee prices appears to be environmental. And another reason is a gift from our friend and ally, Donald J. Trump. Most coffee sold in Canada apparently runs through U.S.-based buyers. And last April, Trump levied a baseline 10 per cent tariff on coffee. He added more tariffs on Columbia, Brazil and Vietnam. Perhaps Canadian retailers could find new suppliers to side-step Trump’s tariffs and prevent Canadians from paying Trump tariffs, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Perhaps our government can make introductions.
Beef inflation suggests higher income from mark-ups across the supply chain
Another big increase is in the cost of beef. Stewing beef is up 22 per cent in one year. Ground beef is up 11 per cent.
Some of that hike is due to an increase in price for live cattle. The latest StatsCan livestock data, from November, shows the price of cattle up 24.7 per cent in a year. Data Shows has not dug into the causes of that big price hike. But economist Iglika Ivanova, co-director of BC Policy Solutions, recently told Left East to West environmental conditions are hiking the cost of maintaining herds.
But the price of livestock is only about 40 per cent of the retail cost of beef, according to the Cattlemen’s association. A 24.7 per cent increase to the input cost doesn’t explain a 22 per cent increase in the final retail cost.
If the cost of cattle was $4 in a $10 retail purchase and increased 24.7 per cent to $4.98, the retail price would shift up to $10.98, about 10 per cent, if higher input costs were passed along at cost. But a 22 per cent increase puts the price to $12.20, an additional $2.20 on the final sale, $1.22 more than the increased input cost. That’s not passing on inflation, it’s adding to it.
Supply chain mark-ups driving prices?
Suspicion falls on the possibility companies along the supply chain are riding a mark-up on percentage and taking a revenue hike — even though there’s been no change in their costs or work being done. That, too, is going to take more research.
But finally, let’s note food inflation is corrosive. Inflation keeps interest rates up, which hurts business loans, capital investment and jobs. And food inflation hits low income families particularly hard because they spend a higher percentage of their income covering the basics. Canada cannot succeed as a pricing paradise for rentiers and a price hell for working class people.
Cattle sale price, monthly, hundredweight Jul 2022-Nov 2025
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