The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that PepsiCo made headlines this week by offering relief to U.S. consumers with price cuts on some of its major snack brands, but no such break is coming to Canadians. The Globe's Jason Kirby writes that the Consumer Price Index category of potato chips and other snacks in Canada climbed nearly 8 per cent in December, 3.5 times faster than the U.S. category of snacks. The increase is partly the result of what economists call base effects. For part of the comparable month of December, 2024, the former Trudeau government provided a temporary tax exemption on products including potato chips and confection. The GST holiday ended in February, 2025, so the return of GST contributed to higher prices in December, 2025. Compared with December, 2020, snack prices in the U.S. have climbed 20 per cent. In Canada, they are up 31.2 per cent. Potato chips in particular have focused the ire of consumers fed up with food inflation and the related phenomenon of shrinkflation. In response, consumers cut back on snack purchases, prompting PepsiCo, the maker of Lay's, Doritos and Cheetos, to announce it is cutting prices in the U.S. by as much as 15 per cent. Offer not available in Canada.