As food insecurity levels rise among Ottawa students, Metro’s Glebe location is limiting how often students get discounts on their groceries to one day a week, down from seven.
The grocer joins the Metro locations in Lincoln Heights and on Beechwood Avenue, which only allow students to save 10 per cent on groceries every Tuesday. The Metro in the Rideau Centre still offers a daily discount.
The change comes as students are struggling with high costs for food, rent and other necessities, said Claire Hyndman, a uOttawa Master’s student who lives in the Glebe.
“It creates an additional barrier for students who are struggling,” said Hyndman.
About 53 per cent of Carleton University students often worry about where they can find their next meal or they choose to pay for rent, tuition and textbooks instead of healthy food, according to a 2021 survey commissioned by non-profit campus group The Meal Exchange. Carleton students experienced food insecurity three times more often than the general population that year, the survey found.
Metro’s Glebe location at 754 Bank Street has offered the daily discount to “support [Ottawa’s] student community” since October 2017, the store previously announced on X.
Hyndman, who began her undergraduate degree at uOttawa that year, said she regularly “took advantage of the deal.”
“Grocery discounts were something I thought a lot of in my undergrad, as I wasn’t working as much,” she said.
In an email response to Capital Current, Metro communications manager Stephanie Bonk said they revised their student discounts in August, “shifting from a seven-day offer to a one-day discount for some stores across Ontario.”
“The Metro Glebe store […] is now offering the student discount program on Tuesdays,” Bonk wrote.
Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr said steep price hikes to groceries and high inflation have contributed to rising food insecurity for students. According to Statistics Canada, the average price for various retail products purchased from grocery stores in August across Canada was up 37 per cent compared to the same month in 2017.
“A 10 per cent discount is significant when you’re a student already paying for tuition and textbooks,” Carr said.
She says her two children always look for discounts when grocery shopping. One is a second-year student at Carleton.
“These high prices are also very detrimental to buying the nutritious foods you need,” Carr said. “If you look at the price of dairy, meat, vegetables, particularly as things tend to get pricier, that can impact a student’s decision making.”
Susan Palmai is the founder of Ottawa Public Foods (OPF), an organization aimed at reducing food waste and providing food to city residents. Palmai agreed with Carr, saying that “removing discounts is an additional stress to being at university when students are just trying to make ends meet.”
“If students have access to cheaper, unhealthier food, obviously they’re going to choose it,” Palmai said.
The average person trying to eat healthy food in Ottawa spent around $435 on monthly groceries in 2024, according to a study by Ottawa Public Health. A student using Metro Glebe’s discount would pay $391 per month, or just under $100 a week, for the same groceries.
However, Palmai emphasized that Metro Glebe “combats food insecurity” in other ways. The store is a sponsor of Walk for the Centre, a fundraiser organized by local churches to highlight food insecurity.
“Whether or not they support the students, they have been generous community donors,” Palmai said, adding that the grocery store has previously donated “good food to OPF that could no longer be sold and would usually go into the trash.”
But Palmai said she is unsure about what to expect going forward. Metro’s Glebe location, formerly known as McKeen’s Metro, was family-operated for more than a century before changing hands to the supermarket chain, Metro, last year.
Of Metro’s 230 Ontario stores, McKeen’s was one of the last three franchisees until its 2024 sale.
It used to give 10 per cent of its annual profits to support local charities and events, according to an article in the Glebe Report. In her email statement, Bonk said she doesn’t know if the store can continue matching this number.
The decisions powerful grocery retailers make now will influence young people in the future. I think it’s important that businesses have a certain element of corporate and social responsibility.
Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr
Palmai said McKeen’s used to be good with food donations, but now she’s not as sure about the store.
“Any time I went to a corporate grocery store, they weren’t the least bit interested in small, grassroots organizations like OPF,” Palmai said.
Carr said the current corporate ownership means that Metro’s Glebe location is in an “influential position.”
“The decisions powerful grocery retailers make now will influence young people in the future,” said Carr. “I think it’s important that businesses have a certain element of corporate and social responsibility.”
“That includes taking into consideration more vulnerable populations such as students.”
Hyndman said that while the decision is a “setback for students,” she understands that Metro’s Glebe location also needs to adapt to the economy.
“They’re a business,” Hyndman said. “But the price of groceries is only going up, so by taking away the accessibility and frequency of that discount, you’re protecting your own interests over the greater community.”
