The chatter started months before Mark McEwan opened the doors to his gourmet groceteria last June. The choice of location, which was then a tired strip of Lawrence East, seemed quixotic at best. As boutique shops go, it was cavernously large: at 22,000 square feet, it was 33 per cent bigger than Pusateri’s, which until then had been the first and last word in high-end groceries in Toronto. And then there was the timing. Weren’t we in the middle of a recession? Surely shoppers were trading down, looking for bargains. Would they really pay $12.95 for chicken caesar salad? Or $6.25 for a squat 250-millilitre jar of salad dressing?

In a word, yes. Despite all the dire stories in the newspapers—tales of Walmart slowing down and the possibility of a price war with Loblaws—the grocery industry has been surprisingly resilient. Over the past two years, food prices have increased rapidly, in part because of a lack of competition and higher agricultural costs. Although the growth rate is slowing, it hasn’t yet flattened out. According to a StatsCan report, retail food prices were five per cent higher this August compared to last August.

Metro and Sobeys, the two newest chains in the city, have posted record profits: this summer, Sobeys reported an 18.6 per cent increase. Independents are also doing well. It’s impossible to find a parking spot at Fiesta Farms on Christie, Longo’s is in expansion mode (there are currently 18 in the GTA, with another five slated to open next year), and niche stores targeting specific ethnic groups are exploding. There are now more than 100 Asian supermarkets larger than 15,000 square feet in the GTA. The fact that Loblaws just bought the T&T chain (where 50 per cent of shoppers at some locations are Anglo) speaks volumes about the profit potential. Even more surprising, three months into operations, McEwan’s $6-million boutique in the burbs was in the black. (Or as the golden boy puts it, “cash flow positive.”) By October, he was tracking $16 million in annual sales.

Shoppers are spending more than ever on groceries, partly due to inflation, but also because the way we shop, cook and eat is changing. Over the past two decades, our tastes have become increasingly cosmopolitan—we travel more, dine out more and follow the successes and failures of chefs the way people used to follow baseball players. Even so, we have never spent so little time in the kitchen. The average person can easily spend more time watching someone roast a chicken on TV than preparing his or her own dinner. And according to Harvard economists, the less time we spend cooking, the more we eat—and by extension, the more we buy. Time, as they say, is money. (And calories.)