'Food prices should reflect costs and competition — not what an algorithm thinks you are willing to pay.'

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Canadians have grown accustomed to a lot when buying food. Shrinkflation has reduced package sizes. Skimpflation has diluted quality.

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Loyalty programs increasingly resemble surveillance rather than savings. Prices often feel disconnected from what is happening at the farmgate.

Yet 2026 may mark a more consequential shift: consumers realizing that artificial intelligence itself may be pushing grocery bills higher, not because food costs more to produce, but because the industry knows more about them, individually.

At the centre of this shift is dynamic pricing. The practice is not new. Airlines, hotels, and ride-sharing platforms have used it for years, and consumers, however begrudgingly, accept the........

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