5 Ways Canadians Are Saving Money While Shopping & Fighting Rising Food Prices In Canada

As Canada's inflation rate continues to soar, Canadians are changing the way they shop in order to save money and counteract rising food prices.

According to a survey run by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and Caddle in Fall 2021, some Canadians are getting creative and even avoiding certain products in order to keep the grocery bill down!

Over half of the survey respondents said they'd noticed meat prices go up over the last six months, which is why it makes sense that a good number of people — 49% — said they're buying less meat. That was the case the most in Alberta, where 57% of respondents said they'd bought less meat.

Even if they're not avoiding products, some Canadians are changing which kind of grocery store items they're picking up. A total of 39.6% of survey respondents said they're checking the expiring soon shelves and grabbing items with upcoming best before dates at a higher rate in 2021 than in 2020. That's in addition to 26.9% of respondents who say they're going for food with an "enjoy tonight" label more this year than last.

And Dalhousie University's report says that more grocery shoppers — 37.5%) are choosing house brands (or "private labels") instead.

Another way people are saving is increasing their use of coupons and flyers. Of those who responded to the survey, 41.6% said they were reading more weekly flyers, whether they were paper-based or digital, this year. Just below that was the 39.5% of Canadians who were using more coupons and e-coupons to save money.

As it turns out, they may need to keep up the practices into 2022, because the Bank of Canada says inflation is staying high for quite a while yet!