Canadian halal shoppers are increasingly doing their shopping at Costco and No Frills, but despite this, close to 60 per cent of those surveyed say they don’t believe grocery food chains are doing a good job meeting their needs, according to the 6th annual Halal Consumer Insights Study from Nourish Food Marketing.
“Each year we run this study and each year we can correlate the efforts being made in the community with the study results we see,” says Salima Jivraj, head of Nourish Multicultural and the founder of Halal Foodie. “While we see the shift in which grocery stores consumers are shopping, we also continue to see consumer expectations rise.”
This year’s study shows a shift in where shoppers are heading to do their household shopping. Specifically in Ontario, where the majority of this segment resides, Costco tops the list and is up 3.4 per cent from the previous year while No Frills is number two and is up by 5.5 per cent from 2018.
Up from 57 per cent in 2018, this year’s study reported that 64 per cent of respondents do not believe grocery food chains are doing a good job meeting their needs while 68 per cent feel the same way about major food companies. These ratings have worsened over time, continuing to drop further each year.
The Canadian halal market is one of the fastest-growing populations in the country, according to Nourish. Statistics Canada data estimates that Canada’s Muslim population will reach 1.4 million and projects it will exceed the size of the Chinese ethnic market by 2021.
