Track record
Statistics Canada publishes its Consumer Price Index for food purchased from stores about three weeks after each month ends. This page sets it beside the change in the GroceryPulse national index (CGPI) for the same month, using only what we had published before Statistics Canada's release. A month is added after every release.
Month by month
Our reading is the change in the average weekly national index from the previous month, as it stood the day before Statistics Canada's release. "Ready" is the date the month's last week was first published.
| Month | GroceryPulse (ready) | Statistics Canada (released) | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 | −0.9% ready , 14 days before | +0.1% released | Opposite direction |
| August 2026 | −0.4% ready , 8 days before | −0.4% released | Same direction |
| September 2026 | −1.4% ready , 11 days before | −0.7% released | Same direction |
| October 2026 | Shown after release ready | Not yet published | – |
Our October 2026 reading was recorded in the archive on October 29, 2026. It appears here once Statistics Canada publishes October 2026; subscribers already have it.
By food group
Each cell shows our change, then Statistics Canada's, from the same archive date as the national reading. Same direction in 11 of 15 group months so far. Pantry, frozen, beverages and household items have no matching Statistics Canada group and are left out.
| Month | Meat vs Meat | Dairy vs Dairy products and eggs | Bakery vs Bakery and cereal products | Fruit vs Fresh fruit | Vegetables vs Fresh vegetables |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 | −8.5% / −0.9% same | −1.9% / −0.4% same | −1.5% / −0.3% same | −2.4% / +4.7% opposite | −2.5% / −2.6% same |
| August 2026 | +0.7% / +1.3% same | −0.3% / −1.3% same | −0.7% / −0.4% same | −1.0% / −6.5% same | −4.9% / −1.9% same |
| September 2026 | +0.7% / −0.7% opposite | −1.3% / +0.6% opposite | −1.0% / −0.7% same | −0.3% / +2.1% opposite | −5.7% / −3.1% same |
Method
Every published CGPI figure is kept in a point-in-time archive the day it is published, and later corrections are added beside it, never over it. Each row replays the archive as of the day before Statistics Canada's release. If our published series did not cover both months that day, the row uses the last earlier date that did. Snapshots stamped when the archive began, rather than when they were published, are never used.
A week counts toward the month its Thursday collection falls in. The reading is the change in the average of the month's weekly national index values from the previous month's average. The later month must be complete, and each month needs at least two weeks.
Consumer Price Index, food purchased from stores, Canada, not seasonally adjusted (table 18-10-0004-01), and its fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, meat, dairy and eggs, and bakery and cereal groups. Changes are computed from the published index levels and rounded to one decimal, as Statistics Canada does.
Both changes are compared after rounding to one decimal. A month where either side rounds to 0.0 is shown as flat and not counted either way.
Read with care
The record is far too short for correlation or error statistics, so none are given. They will be added when the record can support them. Until then, read each month on its own.
GroceryPulse records advertised online shelf prices, sale prices included, for a fixed 50-item basket in 13 cities each week. Statistics Canada's index covers a far broader basket priced mostly from retailers' transaction data across the whole month. The two need not move together, and the size of a change can differ even when the direction agrees.
The published series was restarted at the week ending July 19, 2026 on 12 August 2026. July's reading therefore comes from the series as published before that, and August's compares the July weeks the current series has with August.
Each row uses the figures as they stood before Statistics Canada's release, so a correction made afterwards does not change it. Corrections are listed in the methodology revision log, and the corrected series is what subscribers receive.
Check it yourself
Subscribers can replay the archive with GET /api/v1/index?asof=<date> and recompute each row from the figures as they were published, then set them against Statistics Canada's table. The weekly series, city and chain detail and the archive come with the Commercial API.