Atlantic Canadians are paying more for milk: report

The price of milk in the Maritimes is under scrutiny amid conversations about provincial trade barriers.

Depending on where you shop and where you live, milk prices vary across Canada, nowhere more so than in the Maritimes with both Moncton, N.B., and Charlottetown charging the most for a four-litre jug of two per cent milk.

“The main reason that we see different milk prices across Canada is that we have provincial milk commissions, or milk boards, that are all overseen by the Canadian Dairy Commission as well,” said Field Agent Canada manager Jeff Doucette.

“There are provincial regulations and milk doesn’t flow freely between provinces and so with the model that the milk industry works on, it’s called a cost plus model, so whatever the cost is for the farm to produce the milk, that is taken into account, plus a profit.”

Field Agent Canada has been tracking milk prices for the last 10 years and says it’s consistently found milk prices in Atlantic Canada to be much higher than the rest of the country and generally, Doucette says “there’s pretty big disparities in the milk price from city to city.”

Back in June 2024, Field Agent Canada released a report on country-wide milk prices following the Canadian Dairy Commission Farm Gate price increase.

Statistics pointed out that Moncton and Charlottetown had the highest price at $8.34 for a four-litre jug, as where Halifax was only paying $7.30, Quebec City was $7.89 and in Toronto, the same amount was only $6.44.

“To produce milk in the Atlantic region is more expensive. Our farms are smaller too and so typically you do see costs being higher in the Atlantic, so that’s the one thing you need to keep in mind,” said Agri-food Analytics lab director Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.

However, overall, Charlebois says many Atlantic Canadians reach for two litres of milk instead of four litres, and according to the data, that price is competitive with the rest of the country.

“Typically, consumers are just smart,” he said.

“They look at the price per 100 litres and they actually may feel that it’s a better deal to buy two two-litres of milk instead of one four-litre of milk. So, consumers will basically shift, will absolutely do different things to save money, especially when you have an item like milk.”

However, with threats of tariffs and uncertainties between Canada and the United States, Doucette says in order to compete on an international scale, Canada needs to have a dairy industry that’s as efficient as possible.

“The reality is the majority of producers, or the actual milk plants, are owned by national companies. They’re large Canadian companies, they’re not Atlantic Canada companies anymore. So, giving them the ability to source milk where it’s least expensive and produce milk where it’s least expensive would really drive down prices,” he said.

“If you were to look on say a Walmart website at a two-litre Coca Cola, it’s pretty consistent right across the country and the reason is that Coca Cola can choose to produce where they want. They can move the product around the country as much as they want and so there are no restrictions to how Coca Cola flows and that keeps the prices consistent. But with milk, it’s sort of trapped in its own local market.”

He says the first step needs to be reducing the barriers to the flow of milk within Atlantic Canada and making the local market competitive with neighbouring markets, like Quebec and Ontario.

“When you think about how the industry works, there’s some very easy ways to get costs out of the system that will help everyday families and food affordability,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem fair that on a product that is essential to a lot of families that there’s such a price discrepancy across Canada and in particular in Atlantic Canada.”