Canadians Celebrating The Holidays With Beef

Many Canadians are celebrating Christmas or a New Year’s Eve dinner with a traditional turkey or ham as their main course.  But because it’s just not served quite as often, due to soaring price these days, some are choosing beef as a special treat for their family during this holiday season.

There’s really nothing at the meat counter that could be described as cheap, with all categories taking price hikes, including the poultry and pork cuts. In Winnipeg, shopping at her local butcher’s counter,  Mia Fontaine of Winnipeg said meat prices are generally high, anyway, so she’s decided to have a small sirloin roast for her immediate family on Christmas day.

“High everywhere," Fontaine noted.  "I was actually looking at that one. This one is a top sirloin, it’s $62.”

Fontaine’s longtime butcher is Sean Miller, who runs his family’s shop in Winnipeg.  Miller says he’s seen a lot of changes in his customers’ buying habits since beef started to rise five years ago.  People are certainly buying less of their favorite beef cuts. And another thing he’s noticed, is demand for certain cuts of beef that were never in very high demand before.

“Chuck roast, short ribs, flank steak - all those things used to be trim, and now they’re cuts that people are wanting," Miller said.  "And a lot of people aren’t shying away from buying beef. We’re still seeing a strong demand for it. The changes I’ve seen over the last five years in the beef industry have been pretty drastic. A rib-eye used to be around ten dollars a steak, and now we’re sitting at anywhere from 20 to 30, depending on the grade.”

And with retail beef sales at butcher shops and grocery stores down in volume, that translates to much higher demand for the other two primary meat categories - pork and poultry products.

Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, believes that high meat-product prices will remain high throughout 2026 and well into 2027.  He said it will take at least that long for cattle herd numbers to catch up with beef supply, putting continued pressure, across the board, on animal protein demand.

“The problem with beef is affecting meat-counter economics altogether," Charlebois said.  "Prices for chicken and pork are also rising as a result of what’s going on with beef.”

Price sticker-shock at the meat counter, according to, is leading, or forcing, many consumers to experiment with various kinds of vegetable proteins.  Charlebois said consumers who would never call themselves vegetarians are getting more adventurous.

“People are more focused on other things, beyond the meat counter," Charlebois said.  "The most popular vegetable protein sources out there are tofu, humus, lentils, chickpeas. People are exploring.”

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