Canada’s Food Price Report 2025 projects that typical families of four will spend about $800 more on food in 2025, representing an increase of three to five per cent from last year.
The item with the sharpest increase, meat, is set to rise in price by four to six per cent. A major factor is the dry conditions in Western Canada and the U.S., causing grain prices to rise as the cost to feed the animals has gone up.
Sylvain Charlebois, author, professor and director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, says Canadian grocers have been importing beef from Mexico because there is “simply not enough inventory,” noting Canada’s beef herd is the same size that it was back in 1987, but with 15 million more people nowadays.
“There are fewer producers out there producing beef, and that’s why supplies are really tight right now. It’s the same in the U.S., so were expecting beef prices to continue to rise,” said Charlebois, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.
Getty Images: Credit: howtogoto Creative #: 2155596519 . Collection: iStock / Getty Images Plus. Link: https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/barbecue-grilled-meat-stick-on-fire-flame-with-hot-royalty-free-image/2155596519
Getty Images/howtogoto. Creative #: 2155596519
As for poultry, the avian flu could drive prices up.
“Because of climate change, flus migrate very differently and very aggressively. It’s been happening in the U.S. for a while [and] now it’s coming to Canada,” said Charlebois.
Another product being impacted by weather, coffee, hit a record price in December.
“The arabica bean requires a specific climate and both Vietnam are being impacted by climate change once again so it’s harder and harder to produce arabica beans,” said Charlebois.
Faire de l’électricité avec du jus d’orange
(Videoblocks)
You can also expect to pay more for orange juice, thanks to multiple hurricanes that impacted Florida in 2024.
“Once you lose trees to a hurricane, it’s hard to ramp up production very quickly,” said Charlebois.
Droughts in both Ghana and the Ivory Coast mean the price of cocoa will go up, resulting in a higher cost for chocolate.
There is one positive piece of news, however. The droughts that impacted Greece, Italy and Spain ended in 2024, leading to a generous olive season so the price of olive oil is expected to drop.
Thumbnail courtesy of the Canada’s Food Price Report (compiled by Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of British Columbia and the University of Saskatchewan).