Ikea deal including free kids’ meals 5 days a week not offered in Canada

An Ikea store is seen in Dartmouth, N.S. on Wednesday, March 18, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

A promotion billed by Ikea as an effort to reduce customers’ “cost-of-living pressures” is not coming to Canada – at least not as initially billed.

Ikea announced Wednesday it was offering half-price adult meals and free kids meals Monday through Friday in markets around the world. The news release listed Canada as among the 14 countries involved.

Yet in an email Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Ikea Canada told CTVNews.ca that a portion of the news release was “incorrect for Canada.”

Instead, only Canadian customers who are members of the store’s reward program, known as Ikea Family Members, will be able to get 50 per cent off during the week, with the caveats that this deal applies to “select main dishes” only and is “while supplies last,” Ikea’s Alicia Carroll said in an email.

Kids’ meals are free, but only on Wednesdays with the purchase of an adult meal. This promotion runs July 10 through August.

Ikea and its parent company, Ingka, billed the discount as a way to “help people stretch their budgets.” But a food distribution and policy expert said the public-relations strategy comes “probably a year or two too late.”

“If you look at the G7 (countries) right now, their food inflation is under four per cent. Canada is at 3.4, which is slightly above average,” Dalhousie University’s Sylvain Charlebois said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca Wednesday from Brazil.

“I think the message would have resonated even more two years ago when people were actually hurting. Right now, people are just coping, and they’re accepting that food prices are going to remain high, but they’ve actually adjusted, they’ve made adjustments to their budgets accordingly.”

Charlebois said it was likely a move to recruit new customers and encourage more frequent visits for existing clientele. While customers might only need furniture once a year or every few years, they do need to eat, so a food-based promotion is a way to bring in shoppers who aren’t currently looking for furniture.

“If you can use food as bait and get people in more often, and generate more traffic, that’s powerful,” Charlebois said, adding that chances are that once a customer is in the store they’ll buy something, even if just smaller impulse items.