Ikea is the latest company to cater to Canada’s changing palate with new menu

Vegetarian meatballs at Ikea (AFP PHOTO / Emmanuel Dunand)

Ikea’s Swedish meatballs will have new competition on Canadian menus as the store’s restaurants, like other chains across the country, adopt new items.

Ikea’s new menu features a variety of new balls, including “plant ball nachos,” “falafel balls,” “chicken ball tikka masala,” and “cod balls.”

The furniture chain added restaurants to its locations in 1960. The firm hired a Swedish chef, not the Muppet of that name but Severin Sjostedt, to create a meatball recipe for shoppers to enjoy.

“We must have tested 100 recipes before we declared this one the winner,” chef Severin Sjostedt said in a news release. ”It’s still the recipe I use when making meatballs at home for my grandchildren.”

But brands like Ikea are expanding their menu beyond traditional meat dishes, often centred around beef, to different proteins and plant-based meals.

The move toward alternative proteins comes as high beef prices have affected the shopping habits of Canadians, CTV News reported in June.

Beef saw dramatic price jumps in 2025, with striploin up 34 per cent, top sirloin up nearly 34 per cent and ribs almost 12 per cent higher than they were in January. Beef generally rose almost 13 per cent from August 2024 to August 2025.

The report also found that prices were up for pork ribs, chicken breast and even plant-based burgers, as well.

Despite rising prices, McDonalds released a McValue menu in an effort to attract customers, and other restaurants offer similar promotions in an effort to compete.

Still, last week, CTV News Toronto found that customers were largely unhappy with the prices of fast food meals. That CTV News Toronto report found dissatisfaction across fast food restaurants the Scarborough neighbourhood.

“A burger combo used to be $7 or $8, but now it’s like $15 or $16,” one fast food customer told CTV News.

Canada’s food inflation rate is slightly above the G7 average, an expert from Dalhousie University told CTV News in June. Sylvain Charlebois was discussing another food promotion from Ikea at the time, one that would discount some meals in an effort the company said was to “help people stretch their budgets.”

He said Ikea’s food-related promotions are designed to bring customers in to eat.

“If you can use food as bait and get people in more often, and generate more traffic, that’s powerful,” as the traffic often leads to impulse buys, Charlebois said.

Other brands have been trying to widen their customer base with alternative food options. After rolling out its McVeggie sandwich nationwide, McDonald’s Canada’s chief marketing officer said that “Canadians asked for more options to meet modern lifestyles, and we listened.”

A&W made a similar move with their Beyond Meat menu options in 2018.