New fuel surcharges on groceries and more making ‘almost everything in the economy’ more expensive

A truck carrying Windsor built Chrysler Pacifica minivans is shown among traffic on Huron Church Road in Windsor heading to the Ambassador Bridge on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Photo by Dan Janisse /The Windsor Star

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OTTAWA — Canadians already struggling with rising grocery prices are staring down another blow as delivery companies are hitting their retail customers with new fuel surcharges triggered by the war in Iran.

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Documents obtained by National Post show that a number of Canadian trucking and delivery companies have in recent weeks used a range of mechanisms and formulas to pass on increased fuel costs to their customers. Those mechanisms include flat price increases, surcharges based on weight and distance, and new minimum orders, but economists say they’re all going to mean the same thing for consumers: higher prices.

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There’s little doubt that those customers, mostly grocery stores and other businesses that rely on large shipments of goods, are almost certainly passing on those various fuel surcharges to shoppers, economists say.

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Michael von Massow, a food agriculture economist at the University of Guelph, said the new fuel surcharges are likely to be felt in checkout lines with little delay, particularly in a case like today’s oil supply chain woes that aren’t expected to go away any time soon. It’s difficult to quantify how much the fuel surcharges would cause grocery prices to rise, but the charges themselves are widespread, von Massow said.

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“Almost everyone is charging them.”

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But the problems for consumers may not end there. Those retail price increases will then push up inflation, which has already been on the rise in recent months, putting further pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates.

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Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that inflation jumped to 2.8 per cent in April, the highest rate since May 2024. That April rate compared to an inflation rate of 2.4 per cent in March.

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Von Massow said higher fuel prices will also put upward pressure on prices in many industries other than groceries because transportation is an important input for most goods. Airline tickets, parcel delivery and even some public transit costs have also already been affected.

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“Fuel prices are connected to almost everything in the economy,” he said.

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Many of the Canadian delivery and trucking companies that are raising or implementing surcharges emphasize that the price increases are temporary and are a direct result of the war in Iran and the related price hikes in global energy markets.

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CTS Food Brokers Ottawa, a food importer, wholesaler and distributor whose customers include more than 600 independent supermarkets in Ontario and Quebec, wrote to customers to let them know about a new fuel surcharge. “This surcharge will be reviewed regularly and adjusted or removed as fuel prices stabilize,” the company wrote in early April.

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In its letter to customers, Brandt Meats, also based in Mississauga, Ont., said it would take a different tack. The manufacturer, whose partners include retail brands such as International Cheeses and Summer Fresh, said that its minimum order for deliveries would rise to $1,000 on May 4.