If you’re a Canadian living close to the U.S. border, you can save a lot of money by cross border grocery shopping at U.S. grocery stores. Many times, American supermarkets will have better pricing and selection than their Canadian counterparts on common items such as meat, fish, diary, bread, fruits vegetables, cereal, snacks and everything in between. In addition, U.S. grocery coupons usually offer better deals and discounts than the grocery coupons you will find in Canada.
If you are planning on going grocery shopping in the U.S., it’s important to be aware that there are certain limits and restrictions on bringing food to Canada. You may also have to pay duties on some groceries. To complicate things further, there are restrictions on the importation of food from certain states, and some Canadian provinces have restrictions on certain foods that are not applicable in other provinces. If you plan to bring food into Canada, make sure you do your homework first to avoid an unpleasant and costly surprise when returning to Canada. Nobody wants to make the effort to go cross border grocery shopping only to find that their groceries are inadmissible to Canada or they have gone over their limit (in which case some or all of your groceries may be confiscated), or that their groceries have high duty rates that make U.S. grocery shopping more expensive than grocery shopping in Canada.
If you’re looking for U.S. grocery coupons, you may want to try looking in the local newspaper of the city you are planning on shopping in, as many American supermarkets distribute coupon flyers this way. Below is a list of popular U.S. grocery shopping destinations, and the local newspapers you may want to check out for U.S. grocery coupons:
- Grocery Shopping in Buffalo & Niagara Falls, NY – The Buffalo News and Niagara Gazette
- Grocery Shopping in Bellingham, WA – The Bellingham Herald
- Grocery Shopping in Detroit, MI – Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News
- Grocery Shopping in Burlington, VT – Burlington Free Press
- Grocery Shopping in Grand Forks, ND – Grand Forks Herald
- Grocery Shopping in Plattsbugh, VT – Press Republican
- Grocery Shopping in Port Huron, MI – The Tines Herald
U.S. Grocery Import Limits & Restrictions
For a comprehensive list of food and grocery import limits and restrictions on bringing food into Canada, you can search the Automated Import Reference System (AIRS) available at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website for food products you want to bring into Canada.
U.S. Grocery Import Duties & Tariffs
For a comprehensive list of import duties when cross border grocery shopping, you can search the customs tariffs database, available at the Canada Border Services Agency website.