{"id":77110,"date":"2026-08-14T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/08\/14\/a-lot-of-angry-canadians-are-stalking-grocery-store-aisles-says-survey\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T10:00:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T10:00:38","slug":"a-lot-of-angry-canadians-are-stalking-grocery-store-aisles-says-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/08\/14\/a-lot-of-angry-canadians-are-stalking-grocery-store-aisles-says-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"A lot of angry Canadians are stalking grocery store aisles, says survey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Food prices more volatile than ever before\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9Ch-_XOye-Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> There are a lot of angry shoppers wandering the aisles of Canada\u2019s grocery stores, turned off by shrinkflation and brands that they think are unfairly using inflation to justify price increases , according to a new survey by marketing company UAB Omnisend. <\/p>\n<p> Omnisend said 72 per cent of respondents said shrinkflation \u2014 the practice of reducing the size of a product but charging the same price \u2014 was especially evident in groceries, while 92 per cent said they had noticed instances of shrinkflation. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cConsumers understand that costs change, but they want those changes to make sense,\u201d Marty Bauer, an e-commerce expert at Omnisend, said in the report. \u201cShrinkflation creates the opposite impression: that a company is hoping customers will pay the same and notice less. In many cases, it can definitely feel like an insult.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Almost 90 per cent of respondents said they think brands are using inflation as a crutch to \u201cunnecessarily\u201d hike prices , changing how they view products they used to trust and causing around a third to stop buying go-to names. <\/p>\n<p> Shrinkflation reared its head during the worst of the recent inflation crisis when Canada\u2019s consumer price index accelerated to 8.1 per cent in mid-2022, forcing the Bank of Canada to hike interest rates . <\/p>\n<p> Retail analyst Bruce Winder said consumer packaged goods companies used shrinkflation to try to protect margins and price points for their products. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cI think (shrinkflation) is happening a little less,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of the companies that did it have been bitten \u2026 because they\u2019ve seen volumes drop off, probably because they\u2019ve seen trust go down.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Canadians aren\u2019t the only ones who noticed reduced package sizes. <\/p>\n<p> Omnisend, which also polled people in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom for the survey on a variety of consumer concerns, recorded similar shares of shoppers noticing shrinkflation. <\/p>\n<p> In the grocery aisle, 65 per cent of Americans, 54 per cent of British consumers and 58 per cent of Australians reported seeing shrinkflation. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-license-id=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/financialpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/food-inflation.png\" title=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p> Bauer said grocery shrinkflation is especially a gut punch for consumers because it\u2019s an area that causes them a lot of financial stress. <\/p>\n<p> For example, four in 10 Canadians said prices for groceries felt the most out of control of their everyday costs, followed by gas prices at almost two in 10. <\/p>\n<p> Food inflation continues to exceed overall inflation in Canada, coming in at 3.9 per cent year over year in June compared to 2.8 per cent for the full consumer price index. <\/p>\n<p> Geopolitical events are mostly responsible for pushing up food prices, including the war in Ukraine and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which continue to put pressure on fertilizer costs. <\/p>\n<p> Winder also cited climate change and the increase in fires and shifting crop yields \u2014 \u201cvery different than they were before\u201d \u2014 as factors in the higher food prices. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThere\u2019s just a number of things that have created a perfect storm, sort of post-pandemic, on why costs are going up,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p> For example, 44 per cent of Canadians blamed tariffs and trade policy, followed by government policies at 35 per cent, global supply chains and shipping costs at 23 per cent and retailers at 16 per cent. <\/p>\n<p> Regardless of who or what is to blame, people are feeling \u201cworn down\u201d when it comes to covering costs for essentials such as groceries, utilities and rent, the survey said. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>Canadians still feel financially stretched despite improvement: TransUnion survey<\/li>\n<li>Loblaw discount stores outperform as consumers hunt for deals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> In Canada, 36 per cent used credit cards to cover essentials, \u201cknowing they might not pay if off right away,\u201d the survey said, while 16 per cent dug into savings they were holding for another purpose and nearly 13 per cent resorted to buy-now, pay-later plans. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cCredit cards, buy now, pay later, dipping into savings, borrowing from family and friends, these are all strategies that were once meant to help manage unexpected expenses,\u201d Bauer said. \u201cThe problem is that once these financial safety nets become part of the monthly budget, consumers are left with fewer options when the next unexpected expense comes along.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Ominsend surveyed 4,000 consumers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia in March. Its survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent. <\/p>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: gmvsuhanic@postmedia.com <\/em> <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Restaurants feeling financial pressure from all angles\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-LvtHDwYw3I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>A lot of angry Canadians are stalking grocery store aisles, says survey<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2026-08-14 10:00:38<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of angry shoppers wandering the aisles of Canada\u2019s grocery stores, turned off by shrinkflation and brands that they think are unfairly using inflation to justify price&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/77111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}