What falling granola bar sales reveal about health trends, grocery prices and farmers trying to adapt

Granola bars — fixtures of grocery store shelves for decades — have fallen out of favour as consumers ditch the ubiquitous snack to save money and eat healthier, food researchers say.

On the other side of the supply chain, Canadian oat farmers say these shifting food habits are taking another bite out of their incomes, which are already getting steamrolled by debt and other expenses.

Adam Slobodzian, a marketing professor at the University of Saskatchewan, sees the oat bar case as a symptom of a “strange and complex” set of circumstances — rising food prices across the country, together with rising input costs on farms.

“Farmers are definitely feeling the pressure right now, from all sides,” Slobodzian said. “We heard through the summer that farmers are having rising costs in all of their inputs.”