Meat prices expected to rise in 2025: report

The often-priciest part of your grocery bill will likely get even pricier, according to the 2025 Food Price Report.

The annual report anticipates meat prices rising between four and six per cent in 2025. Between September 2023 and September 2024, meat prices climbed 3.1 per cent, with beef prices increasing by 9.2 per cent in the same period.

Dalhousie University Food Analytics Lab director Sylvain Charlebois co-authored the report, and says it will be “extremely difficult” for consumers to absorb those increases.

“The one thing that is likely going to push food inflation higher in 2025 are meat prices,” he said.

There are a number of factors that influence price, but the increases are due, in part, to a supply issue, Charlebois says.

“The avian flu is really the factor there. We’re expecting avian flu to push chicken prices higher,” he said of poultry prices.

As for beef: “Our herd size is the same as in 1987, if you can believe it. With 15 million more Canadians, we just don’t have enough beef,” he said.

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Carson Callum with Manitoba Beef Producers agrees. Difficult weather conditions and low profits have led some producers to downsize their herds or leave the field entirely.

“In 2021 we saw a major drought here in Manitoba, but that drought carried across the west into subsequent years and even into the U.S.,” he said.

Callum says the Canadian and American beef industries are closely linked, and recent tariffs floated by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump could be detrimental.

“With that high integration a tariff such as this stands to hurt both sides of the industry,” he said.

High meat prices also make the product a target for theft. Ed Cantor with Cantor’s grocery has added security at his Logan Avenue store in an attempt to curb thefts, but some product still walks out the door.

“Meat and cheese,” he said. “They’re not coming in to take a can of tuna or fruit cocktail, it’s the high-ticket items.”

The high prices are changing some of his customers’ shopping habits.

“People are kind of getting away from a lot of beef products now. They’re trying to switch to poultry,” Cantor said.

That’s the case for Darcy Penner, who comes to Cantor’s for meat “when company’s coming.” This afternoon he was picking up ribs and chicken wings for holiday meals in the coming weeks.

“Whether we’re shopping here or at Costco or wherever, the prices have gone way up,” he said. “We’ll think, ‘Oh, we’re going to get a roast,’ then we look at the price and go, ‘Maybe not this time.'”

Penner says he’s fortunate his budget hasn’t forced him to cut back too much. While he feels for people who steal as they don’t have the means to buy food, he’s pleased with the recent police crackdown on retail theft.

“It’s sad that we’re there, but I’m glad they’re doing it because that just costs everybody a lot more,” he said.

The 2025 Food Price Report estimates a family of four will spend $801.56 more on groceries in 2025 than in 2024.