Manitoba eyes new law targeting grocery shrinkflation

The Manitoba government will create a new law targeting shrinkflation in grocery stores and examine the idea of opening a downtown grocery store. Jeff Keele rep

The Manitoba government is targeting shrinkflation with a new law.

The province released a grocery price study Monday, with the aim of lowering costs.

Finance Minister Adrien Sala said based on the study, the province will bring in new legislation to target shrinkflation. This happens when packaging is reduced but the price stays the same or rises.

Sala said grocers will have to display the unit price of an item so people will know when they are paying more for less.

“Ultimately, what this will require will be a much higher level of transparency, allowing Manitobans to be able to compare prices,” said Sala.

Shopper John MacPhail supports this, as he said the practice can be sneaky.

“I’m all for that, you know, because people aren’t going to read the fine print on the back of a box,” said MacPhail.

Food Fare owner Munther Zeid said this will just make more work for independent stores who will have to add more information to their signs.

“Don’t keep coming back to me and have me do more and more work that’s really not going to drive prices down,” said Zeid.

The study also has a recommendation on a new downtown grocery store.

It said the government could explore a public grocery store model where traditional retail options are limited.

Sala said the province will look at the recommendation.

“This is only about committing to continuing to look at how we ensure that people can access healthy groceries downtown. In terms of the delivery approach, this right now is just simply a commitment to explore,” said Sala.

Gary Sands from the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers questions that recommendation.

“Generally OK with most of the recommendations. A couple of them are head scratchers, like the public grocery store,” said Sands.

The province also announced $2.5 million towards Harvest Manitoba’s Food Transformation Centre. The $30 million expansion would allow Harvest to take grocery store and farm leftovers to reduce waste while repackaging it to make healthy meals for families.