Number of grocery retailers in Canada by region 2023

As of December 2023, Ontario had the most grocery and convenience retailers among all provinces in Canada - there were 5,627 grocery retailers located in Canada’s most populous province. Quebec and British Columbia ranked in second and third places, with a total of 4,325 and 1,731 retailers respectively. Yukon had just 16 grocery retailers at that time.

Leading supermarket and grocery chains

Based on the number of units, Loblaws Companies Ltd. was the leading supermarket and grocery chain in Canada in 2018. At that time, Loblaws was operating 2,429 units nationally. Sobeys Inc. and Metro Inc. ranked in second and third places, with a total of 1,895 and 918 units respectively. Loblaws was also the leading Canadian food retailer in terms of sales - in FY 2019/20 their grocery sales value amounted to approximately 50.31 billion Canadian dollars.

Food shopping considerations

According to a recent survey, quality is the most important factor that Canadian consumers consider when purchasing food products. Finding the lowest price possible and the freshness of products were also two high-ranking factors.