Track prices for No Name frozen strawberries.
Canada does not produce strawberries at commercial scale year-round. The domestic growing season is short, concentrated in summer months, and not sufficient to support a year-round retail supply of frozen product. The United States is the largest supplier of strawberries to Canada, accounting for 74% of total import value, with Mexico supplying a further 26%. On the frozen side specifically, virtually all frozen strawberries exported from the U.S. are destined for markets including Canada, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea. California is the dominant U.S. growing region, and domestic strawberry production in California was expected to increase in 2024 and 2025, with growing acreage continuing an upward trend.
Beyond North America, Egypt has emerged as a significant alternative source. Egyptian farmers have maintained stable production in the 2024/2025 season, and IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) technology has made Egypt a strategic choice for companies looking to secure consistent frozen strawberry supply for Canada year-round. For Canadian importers, this geographic diversification provides leverage against North American supply disruptions, though it introduces additional logistics complexity.
Wholesale pricing for strawberries in Canada has been rising. Average wholesale prices have trended upward from USD $7.13/kg in 2022 to $8.58/kg in 2025, with the 2026 average currently tracking at $10.74/kg. This sustained price inflation at the raw material level flows through directly to retail shelf pricing.
The standard processing method for retail frozen strawberries is Individually Quick Freezing (IQF). IQF freezing preserves the texture, nutritional value, and flavour of the fruit without requiring chemical additives or preservatives, as the rapid temperature change inhibits microbial growth. This processing step is energy- and capital-intensive.
IQF plants run at high utilization during peak harvest weeks, and packaging is not a minor cost: retail-ready bags carry significantly higher packaging costs per kilogram than industrial cartons. Processors also grade output into tiers — premium whole IQF, standard slices, pieces, and puree — and the same processor can shift allocation between cuts depending on where margins are strongest, meaning that buyers specifying premium whole IQF compete with the highest-margin downstream channels.
Frozen strawberries are a seasonal pack, year-round drawdown category, meaning that cost and supply continuity are driven by pack-season decisions rather than just annual negotiations.
The Canadian retail frozen fruit market is heavily consolidated. Nature's Touch, a Montreal-based company, holds approximately 70 to 75 percent of market share in consumer retail frozen fruit in Canada. The company operates processing and packaging facilities in Montreal and Abbotsford, British Columbia. The Abbotsford plant services western Canada, the Pacific Northwest and Midwest of the U.S., as well as customers in Australia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Edmonton retailers sourcing frozen strawberries through national grocery chains are largely supplied through this western Canadian node.
Nature's Touch has further expanded its scale through the acquisition of the frozen fruit operations of SunOpta Inc.'s Sunrise Growers subsidiary, which operates facilities in Kansas and Jacona, Mexico, adding geographic reach and supply diversity.
Frozen strawberries must be maintained at -18°C from the point of freezing to the retail freezer case. Any temperature excursion along the way does not necessarily spoil product outright, but temperature breaks create clumping, drip loss, and texture or colour degradation, which translates into claims and downgrades — costs that procurement ultimately absorbs indirectly.
Edmonton is an inland city with no direct port access, adding both distance and handling steps to the cold chain. Product destined for Edmonton typically moves through Vancouver or other western entry points before redistribution overland. Factors including driver shortages and inland port closures have historically created cold chain disruptions in Canada, pushing cold chain operators to modernize in order to manage these risks. Edmonton is served by multiple cold storage operators; Lineage Logistics operates three facilities in the Edmonton area, offering services including cold storage warehousing, LTL consolidation, blast freezing, and customs coordination.
Cold storage fees, refrigerated trucking, and multi-stop distribution to individual stores all represent layered costs that are proportionally higher for Edmonton than for markets closer to primary distribution hubs. Fuel costs and driver availability in Alberta's climate also contribute to this premium.
The Canada-U.S. trade relationship has introduced meaningful price risk for frozen strawberries given the U.S. origin of the majority of supply. Canada imposed 25% counter-tariffs on approximately $30 billion in U.S. goods effective March 4, 2025. However, effective September 1, 2025, Canada removed most of those counter-tariffs in recognition of the U.S. allowing most Canadian goods tariff-free entry under CUSMA, with tariffs retained only on steel, aluminum, and automobiles. Fresh and frozen produce therefore returned to largely tariff-free status under CUSMA compliance, which relieves some of the pressure on import costs relative to the first half of 2025.
Despite the resolution of counter-tariffs, the period of uncertainty and the tariff activity earlier in 2025 contributed to import cost volatility and encouraged some buyers to explore diversified sourcing from non-U.S. origins, a trend that may persist as a risk management posture.
Food safety compliance is a structural cost in this category. After high-profile contamination incidents — such as the 2023 Hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen organic strawberries traced to farms in Baja California, Mexico — retailers often demand tighter controls and documentation, increasing QA costs and narrowing the pool of eligible suppliers. This raises per-unit compliance costs across the supply chain.
In Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) conducts an annual National Chemical Residue Monitoring Program, testing both domestically grown and imported products across eight commodity groups, including frozen fruit, for pesticide residues and chemical contaminants. Compliance with CFIA standards, Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, and retailer-specific food safety requirements (such as BRCGS or SQF certification) adds cost at every node of the supply chain and is a prerequisite for retail shelf placement.
The global frozen strawberries market was valued at approximately USD $1.865 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $3.5 billion by 2035, growing at a compound annual rate of approximately 5.9%, driven primarily by demand in smoothies, desserts, and health-oriented household consumption. North America holds a dominant position in this market, valued at USD $650 million in 2024 and forecast to reach $1.2 billion by 2035.
Rising demand, combined with the wholesale price trend noted above, the cost of cold chain compliance in an inland market, and continued uncertainty in the North American trade environment, create upward pressure on retail frozen strawberry prices in Edmonton. Retailers absorbing these costs face a choice between margin compression and shelf price increases, particularly for private label SKUs where the cost structure is most transparent.