Canadians are well aware of sky-high grocery prices, but just how much have they increased over the years? One shopper decided to find out by comparing a Walmart grocery order from 2020 to the same one today.
In a post on Wednesday, Reddit user MrCrix said they found their oldest Walmart order from 2020 on what looks to be the Instacart app and duplicated it to see how much prices have gone up for the same order since.
The shopper shared the results on r/povertyfinancecanada, and it was shocking, to say the least.
“[The] oldest order I have is November 30, 2020. For 22 items, I paid $145.87. That included all the fees and a $10 tip,” MrCrix wrote in the replies.
They repeated the order in the present day, but only 10 items were automatically added to the cart, and the remaining 12 had to be manually added.
“The reason for this is that the packaging sizes changed,” the Redditor explained. “For example Wheat Thins went from 200g to 180g, Kraft Dinner used to have a five pack, but now only have a four pack.”
That’s already a sign of shrinkflation.
MrCrix checked out the present-day order with a $11.15 tip; the grand total was $214.72. That’s a difference of $68.91, or a price hike of 47.2% from 2020.
“That also did not include a $3.99 delivery fee that I got taken off because it was a promo,” they wrote.
“So, essentially, it is now 50% more expensive to order the exact same items, with lesser volume from Walmart than it was 3.5 years ago.”
Canadians reacted in the comments.
One Reddit user shared their own experience with shrinkflation.
“Good old shrinkflation,” reads the reply. “We ordered a ‘Large’ pizza last night while we were out picking up some stuff in town. Sat down with this box that contained a pizza big enough for me to eat three slices, the wife had two, and that left two regular-size pieces and one scrawny a** piece. That’s a large pizza? Wouldn’t feed a family on movie night, that’s for sure.”
“The funniest (saddest) part is that prices are going up while sizes AND quality are going down. Make that make sense,” someone chimed in.
“Okay, we know this is happening — what the f**k do we DO about it???” added another.
Cross-checking the results above with the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, the same $145.87 Walmart order from 2020 would cost around $172.34 today. That’s an 18% increase in almost four years, with an average annual inflation rate of 4%.
Several commenters on the post claim that Instacart marks up grocery prices, which could account for the higher bill the Redditor cashed out.
Daily Hive took grocery price comparisons even farther back until 2002. Check out how much the average Canadian spent on 10 popular food items over 20 years ago here.