Serving Ontario families since 1984 Toll-free (800) 361-3418 · Local (705) 745-4242 · Text (705) 304-0080

The honest answer

What does a year of food cost an Ontario family?

People ask us what a Shopease order costs and expect one number. There isn't one, and any company that gives you one before they know anything about you is guessing. Here is the real arithmetic, including what our own customers actually pay.

Start with what you already spend

Most households have no idea what their food costs over a year, because it leaves in forty-dollar pieces. The national forecast puts a number on it:

$17,571.79 what the average Canadian family of four is forecast to spend on food in 2026 — about $337.92 a week

Ontario is forecast to rise faster than the national average, in the range of four to six per cent. That is not a Shopease number. It is the same figure we print on every customer's food order, because a price only means something next to what you are already paying.

Source: Canada's Food Price Report 2026, Dalhousie University and the Arrell Food Institute.

Now the part nobody likes to say out loud

There is no single Shopease price, because there is no single family.

A retired couple who eat chicken four nights a week and a household of six with three teenagers are not the same customer, and pretending they are is how people end up with a freezer full of food they did not want.

Every order is built item by item with a Food Planner, from your list, around the budget you already spend. So the weekly number lands wherever your family lands. Some orders are modest. Some are several times that. Both are correct, because both were built to the family in front of us.

Three real orders, three very different numbers

These are actual orders off our own books. Names left out, everything else exactly as delivered, right down to the weekly payment.

$64.38/wk Peterborough-area family · 12-month plan · frozen only
$88.57/wk Kawartha Lakes family · 12-month plan · split into two deliveries
$158.45/wk Lindsay-area family · 6-month plan · freezer and pantry

Same company, same food, same guarantees. Two and a half times the difference between the first and the third, because the families are different sizes, eat differently and chose different plan lengths. You can see the shape of it right there: the number follows the household, not a price list.

What actually moves your number

How many people you are feeding

The single biggest factor. A one or two person household and a family of six are not close, and no amount of clever packaging changes that.

What your family actually eats

Steak every Friday costs more than chicken thighs and ground beef. Neither is the right answer. Yours is whichever one your family will actually eat, which is why every item is chosen with you rather than pre-packed.

How long the order has to last

Twelve months of food costs more than six months of food, but it costs less per week spread over the longer term. Most families take twelve. Six exists for the ones who want to try it first.

How much freezer room you have

Freezer space is a real constraint, not a sales opportunity. We build to the freezer you own, or split the order across two deliveries, or supply a chest or upright freezer at our cost. Whichever one is true for you.

One thing we should be straight about

A Shopease order is not your entire grocery bill. It covers the meat, the freezer staples and the brand-name pantry items you choose. You will still buy milk, bread and fresh produce. So do not read the weekly payment above as a replacement for that $337.92 — read it as replacing the part of it you currently spend at the meat counter, at a price that does not move.

The part that matters more than the number

Whatever your weekly figure turns out to be, it is locked for 36 months from the day you sign, in writing. That is the real difference between this and a grocery budget. The forecast above says food is going up again in 2026. Yours does not.

Alongside it: a 12-month quality guarantee on everything we deliver, and 14 days under our Perfect-Fit Promise to tell us an item is not right for your family and have it replaced.

Want your number instead of somebody else's?

Take the two-minute survey and we will build a plan from your answers before you ever pick up the phone. Or book a free consult and talk it through with a Food Planner. No pressure, no obligation, and no payment information.

Take the 2-Minute Survey Book a Free Consult