Canada’s Competition Bureau is expanding an investigation into Empire Company Ltd., the parent of Sobeys, Farm Boy, Safeway, IGA, Foodland and FreshCo, over whether its use of property controls harms competition in the grocery retail landscape.
On Monday, the bureau announced in a release that it had obtained Federal Court orders to require the production of records, written information and oral testimony from Empire relevant to the investigation.
According to the bureau, property controls are restrictions on the use of commercial real estate that can make it more difficult for competing businesses to operate nearby.
They can include clauses within a lease that limit how the land can be used to “prohibit the lessor from leasing a unit or a piece of land to a company that competes with an existing tenant, or limit what or how products can be sold.”
Property controls can also include what are known as “restrictive covenants,” which the bureau says “prevents a purchaser or owner of a commercial property from using the location to operate or lease to operators of certain types of businesses that compete with a previous owner.”
The bureau has launched a similar investigation into Loblaws, with the new investigation expanding on an earlier probe of both companies’ operations in the Halifax region to include locations across Canada.
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“Lack of competition in the grocery industry can result in higher prices, lower quality and less availability,” the Competition Bureau said in the release, which adds that there is no conclusion of any wrongdoing as the investigation is ongoing.
Global News sent a request for comment to Empire on Tuesday, but did not receive a response by publication.
The bureau said the new court orders will allow it to acquire additional information from Empire, including how it negotiates property controls and how this impacts competition across Canada.
The Manitoba government launched separate legal action against Sobeys in April, alleging the company maintains dozens of property controls after a law was passed a year ago that prohibited restrictive covenants.
In January 2025, Empire reached a deal with the Competition Bureau to remove a property control specific to Crowsnest Pass, Alta. At the time, the local IGA was the only grocery store in the town of about 6,000 residents, and the bureau found there was a property control that ensured this.
The new scope of the investigation into the use of property controls by grocery giants also builds on a study the Bureau launched in 2022 that looked into whether the government could help improve competition in the grocery sector, and why food prices were getting so high.
On Monday, Canada’s overall consumer inflation in May was reported at 3.2 per cent, with food prices increasing 4.4 per cent.
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