COVID-19 Is Changing Canada's Grocery Habits Forever Food Experts Say

At the beginning of the pandemic, it was hard to get your hands on a lot of different things. Canadian shopping habits changed drastically, and it seems they are going through another major shift. Experts say people are now leaning toward fresh stuff more than non-perishables.

In a report for Retail Insider, Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy in the Faculty of Agriculture at Dalhousie University writes that COVID-19 has had some major effects on the food industry, and one of them is people preferring to cook from scratch.

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"Perishables are more in fashion now since we spend more time in the kitchen," he writes. "Staying at home will get consumers to process their own food more often."

He adds that canned stuff was popular at the beginning of the pandemic (so much so that some stores limited the number that people could buy at one time).

However, as the weeks went on and people spent more time at home (either working or not), they became more interested in fresh ingredients and food they could prepare themselves (think about all of those people working on their sourdough recipes).

What this could mean for your local grocery store is a smaller selection of certain items, particularly brand-name ones that Charlebois says you would typically find in the middle of the store.

"But who needs Twinkie-flavored milk, really?" he asks, adding that this is an actual product.

The 2020 Dalhousie food price report predicted that overall costs would rise by as much as 4%.

It was later revised to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the numbers did not change all that much aside from slight increases for bread and vegetables.

It seems like so long ago, seeing completely bare shelves in grocery stores was totally normal.

Despite appearances, there were no actual food shortages in Canada. The empty shelves were just a result of sudden surges in sales.

Photos of fully stocked shelves spotted at Costco (taken by Charlebois himself) were a reassuring reminder of Canada's supply chain.