Independent grocers federation not happy with farmers’ call for cap on profits

HALIFAX – The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers says it’s disappointed and surprised that a farmers lobby group is calling for caps on the profits of major grocery chains. 

Gary Sands, senior vice-president of the federation, says his members are also unhappy with the National Farmers Union’s push for publicly owned grocery stores. 

“I just find it disappointing that anybody in the Canadian food supply chain points fingers at anybody else in the food supply chain because they should know better,” Sands said in an interview Wednesday.

“And I wouldn’t point fingers at the suppliers. I wouldn’t point fingers at the farmers.”

There’s no single reason that food costs are rising, Sands said, adding that the Canadian food system is complex and interconnected. 

“Is consolidation responsible for the food prices that we’re paying today? And I’m saying adamantly, vigorously, no. There’s just no evidence to support that.”

The cap on profits and the public option for grocery stores were included in nine resolutions adopted last week at the annual convention for the farmers union, held in Moncton, N.B.

In an emailed statement responding to the resolutions, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada says that recent inflation data shows the “largest month-over-month decline in food prices since September 2020.” 

The statement goes on to say that Ottawa introduced changes to the Competition Act in 2023 to strengthen the merger review process and expand the government’s ability to address anti-competitive behaviour by big grocery chains. 

“Strengthening competition is essential to ensuring Canadians have access to affordable food,” the statement reads. 

Other than lobbying for caps on the profits of big chains like Sobeys and Loblaws, the farmers union also wants to help create a coalition of publicly run grocery stores across the country. It plans to lobby Ottawa to commit to annual purchases of food directly from farmers to be sold at cost at those stores. 

Sands’s federation includes smaller, independent stores, not the big chains that dominate the market. Yet, his group is still against profit caps on any food retailer, saying the farmers union resolution on profits misses the larger problem of fair trade within the Canadian food system. 

“Instead of coming up with resolutions that are simplistic and looking for a boogeyman, what the farmers union and all of us should be talking about with industry and governments, is what can we do to reduce some of the costs of transportation and distribution in this country, particularly for rural areas.” 

 This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2025.