Among the flurry of futuristic investments that Canadian French fry empire McCain Foods Ltd. has been making, probably the most interesting has been an indoor lettuce farm. That company, GoodLeaf Farms, has turned heads in the industry by producing commercial quantities of salad greens year-round in a windowless warehouse in Guelph, Ont., without pricing itself out of competition with the outdoor varieties shipped up from California.

Goodfood Market Corp. is placing a big bet that it will be a key player in the burgeoning online grocery space as interest in its meal kit business wanes amid an improving COVID-19 environment. 

Save-On Foods moves B.C. stores to 50% capacity as Omicron surge continues Save-On Foods stores in B.C. are moving to 50 per cent capacity "until further notice" in an effort to limit the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Food manufacturers start to cut capacity amid labour shortages and supply chain woes Canada's food manufacturers are starting to cut capacity and focus on key products as they confront labour shortages and supply chain problems that show no signs of easing.

Canada’s broadest measure of inflation climbed 4.8 per cent in December from a year earlier, the largest increase in more than 30 years, raising the odds that the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates next week to offset gathering cost pressures. Statistics Canada’s consumer price index (CPI), which the central bank uses as a guide for where to set its benchmark lending rate, was pushed higher by increases in the cost of almost everything, as all of the eight major components that the...

New rules requiring truckers to show proof of vaccination when crossing the Canada-U.S. border are cutting into shipping capacity and boosting the cost of hauling everything from broccoli to tomatoes.The cost of transporting produce out of California and Arizona to Canada jumped 25% last week as fewer trucks are available to cross the border, according to George Pitsikoulis, president and chief executive officer of Montreal-based distributor Canadawide Fruits.

A new Mercato Fresh grocery store in Windsor’s east end will be the centerpiece of a planned mixed commercial/residential development. Developers broke ground Tuesday on the 16,000-square foot store at 3225 Banwell Road, which will be built by Rosati Construction and will employ 50 to 60 people when it opens this fall.

Parkland Corp.,  PKI-T  -5.20%decrease  one of the largest gas station and convenience store operators in Canada, has agreed to buy M&M Food Market for approximately $322-million as it expands its food offerings. Calgary-based Parkland, which operates On the Run convenience stores and sells gas under the Esso, Chevron and Fas Gas Plus banners, is in the midst of an effort to diversify its retail business as customers gradually shift toward more electric vehicles.

Grocery stores are struggling with rising labour and product shortages that could threaten Canada’s food security, experts say. Employee absenteeism due to workers calling in sick and COVID-19 protocols has hit about 30 per cent at some stores and is continuing to rise, Gary Sands, senior vice-president of public policy with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, said Tuesday.

Unilever signaled on Monday it would pursue a deal for GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare business, calling it a "strong strategic fit" after its 50-billion-pound ($68.4 billion) offer was rebuffed, sending its shares down 6%. GSK confirmed over the weekend that it had rejected the Dove soap maker's bid for the business, which is home to brands such as Sensodyne toothpaste, Emergen-C vitamin supplement and Panadol painkiller.

New Zealand said Canada needs to overhaul its approach to dairy imports because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has repeatedly broken its promise to let foreign cheese and butter flow more freely into the country.

A $2-billion facility to produce renewable diesel being planned for the Regina area is the latest in a growing list of projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the push to reach net-zero. The joint venture between Federated Co-operatives Ltd. and AGT Food and Ingredients Inc., announced Monday, is still at the memorandum-of-understanding stage, but it underscores a growing appetite for renewable diesel across North America.

The province's large-scale retailers say there are "a lot of unanswered questions" over how to enforce the new vaccine passport requirement. More than 24 hours after Quebec opted to extend the vaccine passport to large-surface stores , retailers across the province are still in the dark about exactly how to enforce the new restriction.

The new, online-only venture is meant "to show people where tea fits into their lives," David Segal says. Two former Montrealers are attempting to capture a piece of the growing tea distribution market with a startup that shuns traditional brick-and-mortar stores and relies exclusively on e-commerce.

Bars and restaurant owners are not alone in these challenges Restaurant owners have more than just finances to worry about through the pandemic.

The scenes in U.S. grocery stores this week were a haunting déjà vu: agitated shoppers squabbling over the last packages of ground chuck, parents searching frantically for baby food, pet lovers coming up empty in their quest for kibble and kitty chow, and store managers doling out packages of toilet paper as if they were as valuable as gold bars - or COVID-19 test kits.

As the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 sweeps through the Canadian population, front-line retail workers face a confusing question: Can I afford to stay home if I’m sick? Many Canadian provinces require people to isolate for five days if they experience COVID-19 symptoms. But while provinces such as B.C. and Ontario have mandated some paid sick days, and federal programs such as the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit also help with financial support for missing work, retail...

A temporary ban on the arrival of migrant workers in Canada's greenhouse-growing capital is touching off another wave of warnings about the potential for food shortages - and highlighting the challenge of balancing worker safety and food security.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) is looking for third-party companies to step in and help supply food services for eight hospitals and care centres in Calgary and Edmonton. Currently ancillary retail food services – cafeterias and retail food outlets – are provided through the AHS budget but officials say the revenue they generate do not cover the costs of operations.

Farewell rotisserie - hello spicy chicken! The American-based, Asian-themed, casual dining restaurant chain P. F. Chang's is opening its first Alberta location in southwest Edmonton. The eatery will take over a stand-alone building in the Currents of Windermere shopping complex that used to be a Swiss Chalet restaurant.

Expect the same peanut butter dumplings and crispy spinach leaves, but in a setting less lavish than the Windsor A piece of Montreal food history is getting resurrected this spring, with storied Canadian-Chinese restaurant Le Piment Rouge expected to reopen on Beaumont Avenue in Park Ex this spring.

Unvaccinated truckers being stopped at the border will only make the problem worse, the industry says Soaring prices, limited supplies. That’s the picture awaiting Quebec grocery shoppers over the next few weeks as the Omicron variant continues to spread across the globe.

A Barrie Bakery will soon be making more bread after receiving a loan from the federal government to expand. On Wednesday, Helena Jaczek, the minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for south Ontario, announced a $500,000 repayable contribution to Zappia Fine Foods.

Trading partners around the world have made no secret of their displeasure with Ottawa's high tariffs on dairy imp More countries are likely to pick fights with Canada over its protectionist dairy policies following a loss to the United States in a dispute over cheese imports, international trade lawyers said.

"If you talk to any food company from farm to store, they're likely missing anywhere between 15 to 20 per cent," said Sylvain Charlebois, Senior Director of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University Empty grocery store shelves have become a sporadic issue in Canadian grocery stores in recent weeks. Some believe the problem will worsen when the new federal COVID-19 pandemic measure goes into effect this weekend.