“Food Insecurity”

About 20 years ago, P.E.I. farmer Rose Viaene watched her husband David take their tractor out into their farm fields and destroy their garlic crop — an act of defiance born out of frustration with Canada’s large grocery chains.

Viaene said before then, their garlic was sold across Atlantic Canada, including at Sobeys and Real Canadian Superstore. But that relationship changed when grocery retailers began importing cheaper garlic from China.

The large retailers were still open to buying garlic from the farmers, but Viaene said the offer was too low — just 50 cents per pound when it cost the farm $7 per pound to produce.

Corporate concentration.

Every summer, Canadians are reminded that fresh produce, while essential to a healthy diet, can also pose food safety risks. This year’s Cyclospora outbreak in the United States has already sickened more than 1,600 people, making it one of the largest in recent memory. Yet despite its scale, investigators have not identified the specific fruit, vegetable, farm or supplier responsible. Canada’s food regulators have appropriately resisted calls to suspend produce imports because there is simply no scientific evidence pointing to a particular commodity or country of origin. From a regulatory standpoint, that is the right decision. From a communications standpoint, however, we have an opportunity to do much better.

How do you grow an agri-food business when there are simply fewer mouths to feed?

It may sound like a distant concern, but it is rapidly becoming one of the defining economic questions facing the global food industry. After climate change, demographic decline could well become the greatest long-term challenge for agriculture, food manufacturing, retail and foodservice.

Quebec is poised to become the second province in Canada in recent weeks to roll back provincial sales taxes on food-related items, reinforcing a broader truth governments increasingly struggle to defend: taxing food has always been a flawed way to shape consumer behaviour.

Unlike Manitoba, however, Quebec is taking a broader and arguably more pragmatic approach by extending relief to healthier ready-to-eat products and convenience foods.

Short of hoping that Doug Ford would manage to buy himself another luxury vehicle before the Ontario legislature breaks for summer, Opposition Leader Marit Stiles and team have been presumably casting about for an issue that could score them some points during the final stretch of what has been a rocky few weeks for the premier.

She might have just landed on something.

Hunger is being increasingly exploited as a weapon of war with more than 20,000 documented incidents of “food-related violence” in the past eight years, new analysis reveals.

Attacks include 1,261 strikes on markets used by families for daily groceries and 863 incidents in which food distribution systems were targeted and workers killed.

The analysis looked at the period since UN resolution 2417 unanimously condemned the deliberate starvation of civilians in 2018. It found starvation is being increasingly weaponised with the supply of food routinely targeted in Gaza, Sudan, Lebanon and Haiti among others.

Most consumers have heard of shrinkflation. Less quantity, same price. It is highly visible and easy to notice, especially now that everyone carries a smartphone, takes pictures, and collectively compares products online. Consumers have become far more vigilant.

Shrinkflation has long been perceived as a legal, yet deceptive, way to protect margins while quietly reducing value.

But another phenomenon has been unfolding more discreetly, and most consumers barely notice it. It is called “skimpflation.”

For the first time in months, Canadians received a small piece of encouraging news at the grocery store. Food inflation eased in April to 3.5%, down from 4.0% the previous month. Grocery prices specifically, food purchased from stores, rose 3.8% year-over-year, still significantly above Canada’s general inflation rate. More importantly, food inflation has now outpaced overall inflation every single month since March 2025. So while the pace of increase may be slowing, food affordability remains one of the country’s biggest economic frustrations, and consumers know it.

Confusion over best before dates is causing billions of dollars-worth of safe, edible food to be wasted every year in Canada, according to a recent report.

The report from food rescue organization Second Harvest shows $12.3 billion worth of food doesn’t make it to the grocery store shelves or is pulled prematurely due to “arbitrary best before dates.”

“Nobody produces food or makes food or buys food to throw it away, so let’s stop doing that,” said Second Harvest CEO Lori Nikkel.

Does seem more scam than sense.

If there has been an observable trend in recent decades, it is surely that of excessive intervention and a growing willingness of governments to try to replace markets. We have another fine example of this with the latest fashionable idea from the world of municipal politics, notably in Toronto and New York and taken up by the federal NDP: The creation of public grocery stores.

Something very few people are talking about right now is how recycling policy is quietly adding pressure to food inflation in Canada.

For years, Canadians have tried to understand why food inflation has become such a persistent problem. We’ve debated carbon taxes, labour shortages, transportation costs, supply management, exchange rates, climate events, and corporate concentration. All of these factors matter. But another growing source of inflationary pressure has received remarkably little attention: recycling policy.