October 2026: what a deal-follower's grocery basket cost in Canada & the U.S.

Key findings

• Typical U.S. deal basket: US$24.21 — most cities came in between US$21.19 and US$28.23, across 93 ranked cities.
• Typical Canadian deal basket: C$39.54 — most cities came in between C$36.18 and C$49.78, across 62 ranked cities.
• The best advertised meat deals ran 15–53% below the government average, depending on the region. That compares the lowest flyer price with a typical price, so it isn't a saving on a whole grocery bill.
• Biggest U.S. deal change from September: eggs, 17% cheaper in the typical city (cheaper in 65 of 97 cities).

The basket: 1 lb chicken breast · 1 lb ground beef · 1 lb pork chops · 1 lb beef steak · 1 pack bacon · 1 dozen eggs · 1 lb butter. City totals are in local currency (C$ vs US$) and are not comparable across countries.

Method

Each city's basket = sum over items of the MEDIAN (across the month's weeks) of that week's CHEAPEST observed price at any tracked retailer. Cities ranked only when every basket item has 3+ weeks of observations. Ontario cities include the shared Ontario-uniform chain flyers, availability-filtered per city.

Prices come from retailers' published weekly flyers and, where flyers don't exist, their own online stores — the same data behind every Lowtein city page. Government baselines: Statistics Canada Table 18-10-0245-01 (provincial monthly retail averages) and U.S. BLS Average Price Data (census-region monthly averages). Month-to-month changes compare the same cities in both months, judge both months by the same product rules, and leave out the most extreme tenth of cities at each end. See the full methodology.