A free, transparent, blended national CPI for Canadian groceries.
Built from Statistics Canada's CPI Food Component, the Bank of Canada's all-items CPI, and the project's own shelf-price observations. Each contributing source is named, weighted by methodology pedigree, and disclosed in every reading.
Free. No login. Public API. Source-disagreement scalar published with every value.
Contributing sources: 2 of 3 fresh · Recorded at Jun 7, 2026
Source
Value
Freshness
State
statscan_cpi_food
3.50%
May 19, 2026
fresh
bank_of_canada_cpi
2.19%
Apr 1, 2026
fresh
internal_price_history
—
—
fallback
Why fallback? the project's shelf-observation aggregator did not have sufficient comparable observations for this period to emit a non-fallback reading. A fallback contribution receives 5% of its base weight per the documented methodology — bounding contamination to under 0.1 percentage points. The published blended value remains methodology-stable; the source-agreement scalar reflects the reduced cross-source confirmation. See full methodology.
Source: canadianfoodindex.ca — open methodology blended Canadian Food Inflation Index.
Explore the data
Filter the index by basket (combined / groceries / restaurants), seasonal adjustment, year-over-year window, and historical range.
Direct API URL: /api/v1/inflation-index/yoy?basket=food_combined&period=2026-04&window=standard&adjustment=nsa
How the index is computed
Each reading is a confidence-weighted blend of three independent inflation signals. Statistics Canada's monthly CPI Food Component carries the largest weight (0.45) because it is the gold-standard published methodology. The Bank of Canada's all-items CPI (0.35) cross-checks directional accuracy across the broader basket. The project's own shelf-price observations (0.20) provide a daily-cadence transparency layer.
Each source contributes its base weight multiplied by a fallback factor (5% when the source could not refresh) and an exponential freshness decay (30-day half-life). The published value and a source-disagreement scalar are both reproducible from the raw upstream data using only a browser and a spreadsheet — the methodology document walks through the steps.
GET /api/v1/inflation-index/series?period=2026-04&basket=food_combined
No authentication required. Source attribution emitted on every response as HTTP headers (X-Inflation-Source-*). Per-source contributions returned alongside the blended value for full transparency.
Academic and journalistic citation suggestions. Citation style normalised; adapt to your house style as needed.
Chicago author-date
Canadian Food Inflation Index. 2026. "2026-04 reading: 3.15%." canadianfoodindex.ca. Accessed (access date pending).
APA 7th
Canadian Food Inflation Index. (2026). 2026-04 reading [3.15%]. Retrieved (access date pending), from https://canadianfoodindex.ca
BibTeX
@misc{canadianfoodindex_202604,
author = {{Canadian Food Inflation Index}},
title = {Canadian Food Inflation Index --- 2026-04},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://canadianfoodindex.ca/api/v1/inflation-index/series?period=2026-04}},
note = {Accessed: (access date pending)}
}
Subscribe to monthly updates
The blended Index updates monthly when Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada publish new CPI readings. Three channels:
API: the /api/v1/inflation-index/snapshots endpoint is a machine-readable list of every published reading; suitable for polling on a schedule.
Email list (preferred): subscribers get the monthly reading + an exclusive deeper analysis + first access to future per-banner readings. Email hello@canadianfoodindex.ca with subject “Subscribe” to be added; reply “Unsubscribe” anytime to remove.
About
The Canadian Food Inflation Index is an independent, open-methodology Canadian food-price inflation tracker. The Index exists because Canadian food-price transparency benefits from open methodology and multi-source triangulation in a way the existing single-source CPI publications do not capture. More about the Index →