Food professor Sylvain Charlebois on why Canadian grocery prices are so high, what a Lidl store in Cork, Ireland reveals about what we're actually paying for, and why Ottawa's new Competition Bureau food study is long overdue but unlikely to deliver easy answers.

Charlebois was calling in from inside a Lidl in Ireland when the conversation happened, pricing out a kilo of mozzarella at the equivalent of a dollar seventy-nine Canadian. The comparison to Canadian shelf prices is not subtle. What's behind the gap goes deeper than grocer margins.

From supply management to anti-competitive lease clauses blocking independent stores from opening, the structural problems in Canada's food chain are well documented. The harder question is whether a government study that puts industry players in the same room will produce honest data, or just a room full of people telling Ottawa what it wants to hear.

Topics: Canadian grocery prices, food inflation, Competition Bureau, supply management, retail competition

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Originally aired on 2026-06-18