Making it easier for customers to spot “shrinkflation” — through mandatory unit pricing across Manitoba grocery stores — is among the ways the province plans to tackle high food prices.
Targeting “predatory pricing” by grocers and a potential new grocery store in Winnipeg’s core are also among the interventions and potential policy options laid out in a new grocery price study commissioned by Manitoba earlier this year and released Monday.
“The new measures in this study build on our previous work to lower costs,” Finance Minister Adrien Sala said at a news conference on Monday.
“When you add all these changes up, they start to make a real difference to lower your grocery bill.”
The 40-page Manitoba Grocery Price Study announced in February attempts to put into context some of the increasing challenges associated with putting food on the table amid soaring inflation.
It suggests a plurality of factors are contributing to high prices in the grocery store aisle — from supply chain issues to rising energy prices, climate change impacts, transportation cost increases, competition barriers, “geopolitical instability” and inflation.
The province’s plan to combat “shrinkflation” won’t force producers directly to end the practice of making customers pay the same amount they used to for a smaller volume of food, but by ensuring customers “know when you’re paying more for less,” according to Sala.
Instead, Sala says the NDP will introduce legislation that would require unit pricing at grocery stores, such as the price per hundred grams, so customers can compare items and better discern when they’re being charged more for smaller volumes than previously.
“What this will require will be a much higher level of transparency, allowing Manitobans to be able to compare prices,” said Sala.
Manitoba would join Quebec, the European Union and other international jurisdictions to mandate unit pricing.
The New Democrats also committed $2.5 million to Harvest Manitoba’s planned Manitoba Food Transformation Centre, which will take in food donations from grocers and agricultural producers to create nutritious meals for food bank users.
Manitoba will also measure food prices based on how much it costs to feed families a nutritious meal and release that data to the public, Sala said. The practice of sharing that information was phased out by the previous provincial government, he said.
The study comes as the national inflation rate rose again to 3.2 per cent in May, driven largely by a rise in gas prices, with grocery price inflation up to 4.3 per cent last month, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada out Monday.
Overall inflation in Manitoba has risen more sharply, up 4.6 per cent in May compared to 4.3 per cent in April.
Rising food costs, property taxes push Manitoba inflation to highest in Canada
Manitobans have also seen among the highest grocery inflation increases over the past year, which was up to 4.4 per cent as of last month compared to May 2025. That’s half a percentage point lower than it was in April, when Manitoba’s year-over-year grocery inflation rate was the highest in the country.
The NDP have already taken some steps they say will address affordability in the province, including through the Business Practices Amendment Act introduced in March.
That legislation makes “personalized algorithmic pricing,” both online and in store, an unfair business practice. That practice — also called predatory pricing — is mentioned in the report as a vulnerability facing consumers.
Manitoba launches study to combat ‘predatory pricing’ for groceries
Manitoba bill goes after grocers using ‘predatory pricing’ to charge some customers more online
Predatory pricing, which the province has yet to publicly demonstrate is occurring in Manitoba’s grocery sector, involves retailers pricing some of the same items differently for different customers based on purchase history, income data, credit history, geographic location or socio-economic status.
The study also identifies how grocery store parent companies have undergone a widespread consolidation in recent decades, resulting in less competition in the sector.
New Democrats already adopted legislation last year designed to spur more competition by preventing grocery stores from striking new restrictive covenants or exclusivity rules. They have in the past created geographical buffer zones around stores where competitors weren’t allowed to set up shop.
The study also echoes past calls to address food insecurity and food deserts, in part through the creation of a grocery store in downtown Winnipeg.
Sala said building such a store is something the private sector, not the NDP government, would ultimately have to do.
