For most households, meat is the single most expensive thing in the cart. That makes one question worth answering with real numbers: which chains put meat on sale most often?
How we counted
For five recent weeks (from the end of August to the start of October), we counted how many different meat products each chain advertised on sale each week. We also looked at what share of each chain's flyer deals were meat.
Two caveats up front. First, these counts reflect the flyers we captured, and some chains publish more regional flyers than others. Second, more deals doesn't automatically mean lower prices. It means more choice and more chances to find a cut you want on sale.
Most meat deals per week
Average number of different meat items on sale per week:
- Metro: about 87
- Sobeys: about 70
- Loblaws: about 44
- Nations Fresh Foods: about 43
- Real Canadian Superstore: about 40
- IGA: about 38
- Safeway: about 37
- T&T Supermarket, Your Independent Grocer, No Frills, Adonis: about 30 each
Metro and Sobeys stood out by a wide margin, often featuring twice as many meat items as other chains.
Who leans hardest on meat
Share of each chain's flyer deals that were meat:
- T&T Supermarket, Safeway, Oceans Fresh Food Market: about one in five deals
- Nations Fresh Foods, Sobeys: around 18 to 19%
- Metro: about 16%
- Loblaws, IGA, Your Independent Grocer: 11 to 13%
- Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills: about one in ten
Discount banners like No Frills and Superstore tend to spread their flyer across the whole store and rely on lower everyday prices, so meat makes up a smaller slice of their deals. Chains like Safeway and Sobeys use meat as a headline draw.
What this means for your cart
If you plan meals around meat, check the flyers of a chain with lots of meat deals first. More options means a better chance the cut you need is on sale this week.
If you buy the same few cuts every week, a discount banner's regular price may still beat another chain's sale. Compare the price per kilogram, not just the word "sale."
Combine both. Many families do best by buying their meat where it's on sale that week and the rest of their groceries wherever the basket is cheapest. ShoppedOut compares your whole list across nearby stores, so you can see whether a second stop actually saves money once your time is counted.
Make meat deals go further
- Buy family packs on sale and split them into meal-size portions before freezing.
- Plan two or three dinners around whichever meat leads the flyer.
- Use cheaper cuts (thighs, shoulder, stewing beef) in slow-cooked meals.
- Stretch ground meat with lentils, beans or extra vegetables.
As our archive grows past a few months, we'll be able to show which chains bring the deepest meat discounts too, not just the most frequent ones.
About these numbers
Every figure here comes from ShoppedOut's own archive of weekly flyer sale prices across Canadian grocery chains, collected from late August to early October 2026. It only counts items we captured from flyers, so it reflects what was advertised, not every shelf price. Prices and percentages are examples to help you plan, not a promise of what your local store will charge next week.
