It’s 2026: why are you still shopping at Loblaws or Metro (or Farm Boy or other expensive grocery stores)?

In 2022 I switched from shopping at my local Metro to shopping at Walmart via Instacart (since I don’t own a car and the Walmarts are far away). In 2023, as prices at Walmart shifted upward on Instacart, I started shopping more and more at Food Basics (essentially much of the same food as Metro).  In 2025 I still mostly shopped at Food Basics because it has the best selection and prices, but I still shop at Walmart for some things, but I also shop at other low cost places like Giant Tiger, Fresh Co and occasionally No Frills.

So how do things stand in 2026? I decided to do a price comparison again on January 17, 2026 of these Canadian staples (selected from this list) to see how cheaply I could get them at the various grocery stores using Instacart. Here’s my results:

Food	Food Basics	Walmart	Metro	Loblaws
Chicken breast (1 kg)	$15.41	$14.34	$22.00	$23.00
Eggs, dozen, Lg	$3.99	$4.13	$3.99	$4.35
Butter, 1 pound	$5.89	$6.13	$5.99	$6.55
White Bread	$1.99	$2.60	$2.48	$2.75
White Rice, 1 kg	$1.62	$1.77	$2.06	$2.33
Bananas, 1kg	$1.30	$1.30	$1.74	$1.90
Carrots, 1kg	$2.76	$2.27	$3.30	$3.24
Vegetable oil, 1 L	$3.00	$4.18	$3.33	$4.03

Things to note: Food Basics and Metro have in store prices on Instacart: Walmart and Loblaws do not, so things may be cheaper if you go to Walmart or Loblaws directly. In each case I tried to find the lowest cost item shown, which meant the cheapest items in Loblaws were no name items. Also to get the best bargain, I went with rice sold in 8Kg bags and oil sold in 3L bottles. For some foods like carrots or chicken, they aren’t sold in 1 kg units, so I converted the unit price for a 2 lb bag of carrots into a 1 kg price.

For at least these staples, Food Basics and Walmart are cheaper than Metro which is cheaper than Loblaws, taking into account the things I noted.

Now this is just 10 staple items. Over a week you buy more than these things. And you buy them over and over again in the course of a year. That’s likely thousands of items, with markups at the higher priced stores being anywhere from pennies to dollars more on each good. I figured I was saving over $1500 a year in 2022 which made up for the Instacart fees for me. You might find something similar in 2026.

Of course you may have many good reasons for shopping at Loblaws or Metro. They both may have items you can’t get anywhere else. You might think their produce or meats better. You might find them more convenient, especially if you don’t have or want to use Instacart. All valid.

But if you do have options to shop at lower cost grocery chains like Food Basics, Walmart, Giant Tiger or Fresh Co, then I recommend you do so. Save your money and/or make your life easier.

P.S. I will also note that it’s good to keep a close eye on the fees of Instacart. For example in 2022 the service charge was 5%. Now it’s 8% with a minimum, making it worthwhile to get bigger orders of at least $50/store. Also the heavy bag fee seems to have gone. Instacart still makes my life easier and saves me money, but YMMV.