Canadian Grocery Profitability: Inflation, Wages and Financialization

This report examines the Canadian grocery industry to better understand what is driving retail profit growth, and as a result, higher supermarket food prices. Currently, there are two dominant narratives about grocery profit growth. The first is that demand growth in the pandemic and post-pandemic period has driven profit increases. This argument is highly unlikely given that the real sale volume of food items has declined since the 2020 peak.