TORONTO – A report prepared by Consumers Council of Canada in response to rising grocery prices in Canada finds consumers still concerned and harbouring a “low-burning fever of grievance” against the country’s major grocers, which many have considered to be more intent on gaming them than serving them as customers.

The Council’s report Mobilizing Consumer Protection and Empowerment at the Grocery Store: The Shopping Experience at Major Grocers makes a series of recommendations for improving consumer satisfaction and confidence in the grocery sector, based on having taken inventory of consumer and expert perspectives on food inflation and measures in response that retailers, manufacturers, governments and consumers themselves can take.

Among recommendations to Canada’s grocery retailers:

• Grocers should embrace consumers’ expectations for improved price transparency and accuracy.
• Quality assurance programs should be implemented to ensure 100% price accuracy at checkout.
• Quality assurance should be enhanced to prevent short-weighting, species misidentification, inaccurate signage and food adulteration.

The report advises grocery manufacturers to respond to consumer concerns by:

• Ending the ‘shrinkflation’ game.
• Paying closer attention to government-funded allergen management guidelines.
• Improving online product information to reflect what consumers expect ‘in-store.’
• Voluntarily providing labelling to indicate packaging and product formulation changes.
• Reporting incidents of ‘food fraud’ to regulators.

Consumers think:

• Governments should implement unit pricing standards and law and regulation to back them up
• Federal-provincial coordination need to more seriously engage to determine what specific action can be taken to implement guidelines, codes of conduct, regulations or other policy instruments to address food security and consumer vulnerabilities in times of high inflation.
• During times of high inflation and limited supply, food manufacturers, retailers and government agencies must become more, not less sensitive and active to ensuring business practices are and are seen to be trustworthy.
• More effort is required of regulators to curb food fraud and strengthen health and safety oversight, especially during challenging economic times when the temptation to ‘cheat’ will be higher.
• They are underrepresented and consumer organizations need to be better empowered to attend to their shared interests in honest trade practices and safe products.

The report further recommends:

• The effectiveness of the new Grocery Code of Conduct should be examined at two and five years since inception to determine whether it has helped stabilize food supply and costs and to determine what benefits it has provided consumers.
• Government explore means to strengthen role of ‘independents’ and ‘alternatives’ to major grocers in the grocery sector.

The report suggests some tangible steps consumers can take to respond to food price inflation and their dissatisfaction with how the grocery sector serves them. It says consumers could:

• Tell and write retailers they frequent that they want to see more legible, standards-based price presentations in stores.
• Communicate to members of Parliament and provincial legislatures their desire for adoption of a national standard for unit pricing, since both levels of government will need to be involved.
• Impress upon members of Parliament their strongly felt views about the need for verified, accurate labeling of grocery product origin and contents and of changes in quantity or ingredients of packaged goods.

Consumers Council of Canada has received funding from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s Canadian Consumer Protection Initiative. The views expressed in this report are not necessarily those of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada or of the Government of Canada.