Canadian households are continuing to pay more at grocery stores as food inflation climbed four per cent in September compared with the same month last year.

Annual price hikes at the grocery store have largely trended higher since a recent low in April 2024, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. Food inflation in August was up 3.5 per cent from a year ago.

The federal government ended 25 per cent counter-tariffs, which contributed to higher costs for food imports, in September as the two countries continue to negotiate on trade.

CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said high food inflation came as a surprise, given retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. were dropped in September.

“We’d actually expected that with the retaliatory tariffs being reduced, that maybe we could get a little bit of an

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