Competition Bureau to probe grocery pricing

Canada's Competition Bureau says it is launching a study on competition in the grocery industry.

The agency said in a press release Monday that it plans to investigate various issues in the grocery industry, "with the goal of recommending measures that governments can take to help improve competition in the sector."

The bureau functions as perhaps Canada's most prominent consumer watchdog group by investigating anti-competitive practices that serve to push up prices for consumers, including things like deceptive marketing, price-fixing, and even outright fraud.

The bureau says the move isn't in reaction to any specific allegation of wrongdoing, but it comes as consumers grapple with food prices rising at their fastest pace in more than 40 years.

Last week, new data showed that while Canada's inflation rate eased to 6.9 per cent, the prices of food purchased at stores still rose by more than 11 per cent.

Many factors have been blamed for the rapid escalation in food prices, including extreme weather events, higher input costs, and temporary supply chain stresses such as the current invasion of Ukraine. But the bureau says it wants to try to understand if there are any anti-competitive factors at play, so it's seeking answer to three broad questions:

A previous bureau investigation into food price trends found that some companies had colluded to fix the price of bread and baked goods for years, at consumers expense. That investigation is ongoing.

More to come