Canadians continue to have considerable goodwill toward the country’s food system, but new research from the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity (CCFI) shows that the environment surrounding that trust is becoming more complex.

The findings, released October 6 at CCFI’s 2026 Public Trust Summit, mark the 10th year of CCFI’s national public trust research.

Most Canadians (57%) still have a positive impression of Canada’s food system, unchanged from 2025. But confidence in where the system is headed has weakened. Four in 10 Canadians, 40 per cent, believe the food system is moving in the right direction, down five percentage points from last year, while the proportion who are unsure has risen to 38 per cent.

“Canadians haven’t lost confidence in the food system today, but they’re becoming more uncertain about what comes next,” said Lisa Bishop-Spencer, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity. “Trust is still there, but it’s operating in an environment shaped by affordability pressures, a more difficult information landscape, and rapid change.”

Affordability remains the clearest pressure. Nearly half of Canadians, (49%) rate the cost of food as a major concern, unchanged from 2025 and ahead of inflation, access to healthcare, availability of healthy food, and the Canadian economy.

The research also points to growing challenges around the information Canadians receive about food.

Concern about food misinformation increased significantly, from 40 per cent in 2025 to 43 per cent in 2026. Canadians are also slightly more likely to say they find it difficult to determine whether food-related information is true or false, highlighting the challenge of navigating an increasingly crowded information environment.  Against this backdrop, farmers remain Canadians’ most trusted stakeholders in the food system, with trust in them up five percentage points from last year.

“Providing more information isn’t enough on its own,” said Ashley Bruner, director of research and stakeholder engagement at CCFI. “The challenge is making credible information easier for Canadians to recognize, understand, and verify, and ensuring the people and organizations providing it have earned their trust.”

Artificial intelligence is emerging as another test of that trust. Daily use of AI tools for food-related information rose directionally, from 10 per cent to 12 per cent, while comfort with AI declined significantly across every area measured.  The findings suggest that adoption of new technologies may be outpacing public comfort with how they’re being used.

Taken together, the 2026 findings point to a public trust environment that’s becoming more complex and discerning. Canadians remain broadly positive about the food system, but affordability, uncertainty, information quality, and emerging technologies are placing new pressures on that trust.

“A strong and resilient food system depends on public trust,” said Bishop-Spencer. “The opportunity is to understand what’s underneath these shifts. That means paying attention not only to what Canadians think, but to what’s shaping those views, where uncertainty is emerging, and what organizations across the food system can do to strengthen confidence over time.”

The full 2026 CCFI Public Trust Research explores these findings in greater depth, including affordability and value, trust and credibility, misinformation and transparency, Canadian food and resilience, and emerging technologies.

The 2026 CCFI Public Trust Research is available at https://www.foodintegrity.ca/research/

Methodology

A national online survey was conducted via Ipsos Public Affairs from August 18 to August 31, 2026, among a representative sample of 2,853 Canadian adults aged 18 and older. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure the sample composition reflects the overall population according to census information. The precision of online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the results are accurate to within +/- 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had all Canadian adults been polled.

Source:  Canadian Centre for Food Integrity October 6, 2026 news release