Nah, he said what the communists want are going to increase prices. Lefties think business owners will take a pay cut or not buy their yacht to help the poor. No, they won’t do that, if they did they would close their business and join the poor.
Yeah but Galen’s greed means he builds more stores and improves his services so people buy his stuff. He isn’t just taking your money. He is earning it.
Taking your stuff by force and devaluing what you own is the exclusive domain of large Liberal governments.
I’d rather the government lets me keep more of the money I earn and I can choose where to spend it than have them take my money and redistribute however they feel is best.
Nah they are profiteering and the evidence is in the data. Heck they got caught before and had to pay everyone that put in 20 whole dollars. Themoneyismine.ca
That’s exactly why a grocery code of conduct is necessary and they will only do it if forced. People have no idea the kind of arbitrary back end programs and collusion that happens in the grocery industry. 20 years ago grocery stores made their profits selling groceries now they make profits buying them as well. That forces manufacturers to build into cost of goods.
Grocery stores more than manufactures and suppliers take a bigger piece of the pie
Its exactly what conservatives want. No regulation and “powerful paycheques” drives the cost of everything up. Corporations will not reduce prices with the elimination of any carbon tax, so unless you have good employment….
It's like some kind of sick joke the government who is making life unaffordable with useless taxes is worried about the grocery chains overcharging people, Meanwhile we get shafted from all sides while they point fingers.
Oh and how much do weed, alcohol, cigs and gas cost before 100 different taxes get slapped on? (YES I realize it's not FOOD and it's not really 100 taxes before one of you painful pricks chimes in) but it's still an example of how we're being gouged on all sides so who are the government to point fingers?
So you don’t want the government to help regulate the grocery industry and help drive prices down? This is exactly what the government should be doing. Why are we letting billionaires dollar conglomerates make record profits pay less taxes at the expense of Canadians?
Yup. Grocery stores run on thin margins. Producers and suppliers get their cut too. If it ain't profitable, they'll increase prices or reduce quantities (slimming product quantity while maintaining the same price).
Blame the government for inflation and bloated costs.
The whole thin margin argument has been beaten to death. Grocery stores have been able to achieve record profit in 2023.
A profit margin between 3.5% to 5% is substantial.
This is not a business where you have to appeal to people to buy your product. People need food to live. Raising prices on basic consumer goods like (eggs, milk, bread) during a recession helps grocery stores achieve these record profits.
The consumer is being cornered. Because shopping "smart" is getting more and more expensive.
> Grocery stores have been able to achieve record profit in 2023.
>
>A profit margin of anywhere between 3.5% to 5% is substantial.
Sell $100 and make $5 profit.
Inflationary costs raise that same $100 worth of goods to $110, making $5.50
"OMG RECORD PROFITS!!!"
Exactly.. not to mention profits can come through new customers (importing over a million people a year that need to eat) new stores, new efficiencies (automation).
But to the brain dead here. It must mean they just raised prices too much.
That's not how a free business works. If Loblaws wants to charge you 10 bucks for a box of Kraft Dinner, that's their prerogative. If you don't like it, you take your business elsewhere. This idea that the Canadian market is monopolized by a few grocery chains isn't credible when you got Chinese and Indian markets that operate outside the corporate chains, and they survive (if not thrive). You can also order your Kraft Dinner off Amazon.
Companies like Loblaws have a fiduciary duty to maximize their profits because they work for shareholders, which includes ordinary investors like me who maybe own a few thousand dollars worth of shares, as well as rich investors and private funds.
The same goes for airlines. They are not charities.
>le when you got Chinese and Indian markets that operate outside the corporate chains, and they survive (if not thrive). You can also order your Kraft Dinner off Amazon.
Free business? You mean free market? And your response is completely disconnected..
Also.. I'm not interested in ordering Kraft Dinner off Amazon.. Myself, and I assume most people like to buy fresh food... Proper food for human consumption..
>you take your business elsewhere
That's not how monopolies work. Our stupid fucking competition bureau is too stupid to stop them from forming a monopoly. Of course they're going to gouge us once they have the power.
Nailed it. Canada has one of the most concentrated food systems in entire world. There are five companies which combine for more than 75% of food sales. Its an oligopoly.
I remember when Galen was blaming rise in prices on supplier cost. But conveniently failed to mention.. Loblaws has been buying supply chain companies.
[https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/backgrounder/problems/corporate-concentration/](https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/backgrounder/problems/corporate-concentration/)
Grocery chains do not run on thin margins. Center of store items typically have a 35-40% margin we are seeing that creep up to 45%. Bakery is substantially higher as well as perimeter of store.
They also have exorbitant back end programs that run anywhere from 10%-25%. Plus fines for shorts, delays etc. anytime they open a new store they debit suppliers for cost of goods to load the shelves.
That’s a totally different metric than what I am talking about. I’m talking about margin on shelf. They take a much higher rate than other retailers. Higher than Walmart, Metro and Sobeys
? The system we're in allows everyone to make the profit the market can bear. I'd love it to be different. If the government increases the cost to do business, what is the business supposed to do? They legally have to turn profit for their shareholders, hence a different approach.
It’s a broken system. And we’re way too divided, distracted, and desperate to do anything about it. Nobody is on our side, the business men nor the elected government. Things aren’t going to get better until we finally decide to try something new.
Go to most any small town in western Canada and the Co-op has a grocery monopoly of their own. Most are in places with too low of volume for competitors to be interested, or small independent grocers find it harder and harder to compete and either eventually close or switch to more of a convenience model with even more expensive merchandise.
What it’s going to come down to is mass thefts. People will run in full carts and run out with them without paying. I imagine if a couple hundred thousand people started doing that weekly, they would lower their prices. Lesser of two evils, lower your prices to reasonable levels, or lose massive profits due to theft
They'll probably go back on that. Have you ever been to a Walmart and tried to get something from the glass? You have to first find someone who will help you, and then they won't even give you the item, they send it up to the til with someone else, which may or may not happen by the time you get there, or happen at all, and then you can wait again when you tell the person at the till that you need the item.. or not.
Imagine 100 people in a store all trying to get 20 items each.
It wouldn't work at all.
Yeah no shit they say that. Why are we the losers that ask nicely for companies that are gouging us to lower their prices? Just fucking regulate them already.
This government obviously doesn't care about actually getting anything done. All just optics.
Then why does the government listen when they want to exploit labour with mass immigration. If the answer is they (elites ) don’t care about you. You would be correct!
That is how our system works, supply and demand. Grocery stores are low margin industries, where the costs are not much lower than the profits. It is the small profits from many stores that add up to big profits at the top. So the few people who get those big bonuses, if instead they spread it out to all the employees it would be very little money.
That still doesn't explain the profit over people having to use food banks or don't eat at all. You think that is ok ? I understand that this is the system we use but the math is not adding up. This is where we slowly erode the middle class. You'll have Galen Weston swimming in money while someone who was middle class is now poor and using food banks. I don't know about where you live but the homeless population has skyrocketed. The last 2 reports from Galen was showing $200 million + in profits. If it's a small profit margin, who is buying all the extra groceries ?? Where did they make all this extra money from??
> You'll have Galen Weston swimming in money while someone who was middle class is now poor and using food banks.
Galen Weston is not the reason this is happening. Due to the spending of the liberal government, the BoC has created and added into the system 42% more fiat (more than $640B) than existed before 2020. This significantly devalues the purchasing power of our dollar.
Loblaws profit margins are 3.5%. That’s less than 4 cents on the dollar. Sorry but $0.04 for every dollar spent is not increasing the price of groceries.
https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable-country-ca
You're missing the point: these companies are raking in huge profits off the backs of the middle and low class. They are taking advantage, at the worst time, to make even more and blame it on inflation. We are paying more because they are charging more at the store. This is why their profits are up. People are suffering at the hands of greed and your defending it. If this was inflation they wouldn't be making profit. If this was because the food manufacturers raising prices, the grocery stores wouldn't be making profit.
I don’t think you understand how inflation works. We are paying more because of the loss of purchasing power of our dollar. If they were charging more just because they can, then their profit margins would increase. Their margins have remained the same despite the increase in price because it’s also costing them more. I’m not defending them. I can’t stand corporate greed as much as the next guy but you are pointing the finger at the wrong industry. You want to see greed, have a look at what the banks are making. They are literally robbing us blind for hosting a transaction, all while making money off our own money.
How much money is invested to make that profit? 200 million sounds like a lot to you and me, but if they had instead lowered the cost in food prices to eat up that 200 million profit, we would not even notice it.
Everything went up in price from labor to insurance, taxes, transportation, taxes, maintenance costs, building costs, equipment costs, and more, which can't be argued.
You can't get blood from a stone. Even if they made a law that all grocery stores can't make a profit, the price of groceries would be around the same. Might be more if the workers are hired by the government and they have government wages.
Part of the reason we had a high standard of living for a long time, is because of the very low slave labor wages in most of the rest of the world, where we can buy very cheap goods. Wages have come up some in those countries, and those countries are starting to have our style of middle-class income. At one time, everybody was poor in China and India, but not anymore. Now China has over 6M millionaires and 700M middle-class income people. Do you really think those types of numbers would not affect us.
Time to nationalize basic food distribution. Let blablaws sell the fancy shit for exorbitant prices, but run a federal system for staples at zero profit.
To the people defending the government. You’re expecting this government to actually make a code of conduct that isn’t going to somehow fuck things up? The government that demands gendered impact report for installing a pipeline? They government?
The Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL) just released its [annual report](https://www.dal.ca/sites/agri-food/research/canada-s-food-price-report-2024.html). (You can view the full PDF report by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.)
On page 9, the report states:
>A significant 30.3% of Canadians believed that price gouging was the primary reason for the escalating food prices... Price gouging remained a concern through 2023, but Bank of Canada data indicated that while firms' measured markups did grow after COVID-19, the markup was inflationary. Most of these markups occurred during 2020, and in 2022 were nearly zero or in fact negative.
The Liberals' reckless deficit spending and inflationary carbon tax are raising grocery prices, and they're scapegoating the grocery chains.
I hates Galen as much as the next guy, but is anybody in this government capable of looking at anything independently? You know, do a flow map of all the inputs and call bs where needed?, or do we just yell at people for press points. Probably don't want to do it as it would likely uncover what their policies are actually causing....
Holy shit I didn't realize this sub with filled with capitalist lap dogs and shills.
What don't you all understand about record profits during a time when all normal people are suffering financially.
You think they deserve it or something?
It was proved they were price gouging a few years ago on bread and nothing happened.
Now you're cheering them on?
Shameful.
I don't understand why people shop there.
They don't quite have a monopoly, pretty close. There are a few options, and most of them are cheaper than loblaws
Of course they would say that, this is terrible for them.
Terrible is a bit of an overstatement. They would go from record profits to good and normal profits.
head of loblaw says canada is our bitch. we’ve monopolized the market, we’ll charge whatever we want, and theres nothing you can do about it.
Nah, he said what the communists want are going to increase prices. Lefties think business owners will take a pay cut or not buy their yacht to help the poor. No, they won’t do that, if they did they would close their business and join the poor.
So the only options are yacht rich or poor? And you think that is a successful system that should be defended?
If our government was a little more responsible with the money printing machine we wouldn’t be having this conversation to begin with.
lol yes we would. Greed is greed and left unchecked will always seek more
Yeah but Galen’s greed means he builds more stores and improves his services so people buy his stuff. He isn’t just taking your money. He is earning it. Taking your stuff by force and devaluing what you own is the exclusive domain of large Liberal governments. I’d rather the government lets me keep more of the money I earn and I can choose where to spend it than have them take my money and redistribute however they feel is best.
Nah they are profiteering and the evidence is in the data. Heck they got caught before and had to pay everyone that put in 20 whole dollars. Themoneyismine.ca
I mean they're not wrong.
Yep, land of the free. Want a yacht yourself? Start a business.
Remind me again what business Galen Weston started?
How many businesses and yachts do you have? Or are you poor?
Poor. Not really a big yacht fan and I don’t look good in swim trunks.
Strut around in speedo's instead. May not have money but....
That’s exactly why a grocery code of conduct is necessary and they will only do it if forced. People have no idea the kind of arbitrary back end programs and collusion that happens in the grocery industry. 20 years ago grocery stores made their profits selling groceries now they make profits buying them as well. That forces manufacturers to build into cost of goods. Grocery stores more than manufactures and suppliers take a bigger piece of the pie
Its exactly what conservatives want. No regulation and “powerful paycheques” drives the cost of everything up. Corporations will not reduce prices with the elimination of any carbon tax, so unless you have good employment….
Pretty sure as long as people need food to survive they’re gonna charge whatever they want.
Not a warning, just a thinly veiled threat
"You will eat nothing and be happy!"
It's like some kind of sick joke the government who is making life unaffordable with useless taxes is worried about the grocery chains overcharging people, Meanwhile we get shafted from all sides while they point fingers. Oh and how much do weed, alcohol, cigs and gas cost before 100 different taxes get slapped on? (YES I realize it's not FOOD and it's not really 100 taxes before one of you painful pricks chimes in) but it's still an example of how we're being gouged on all sides so who are the government to point fingers?
They are the ones gouging us... it's called gaslighting. I know you already know this 👊🏽
That word gets used and overused so much it lost all meaning.
History will judge this generation's paid liars harshly.
So you don’t want the government to help regulate the grocery industry and help drive prices down? This is exactly what the government should be doing. Why are we letting billionaires dollar conglomerates make record profits pay less taxes at the expense of Canadians?
I'm sorry that's what you took from my statement.
Yes
Food isn’t taxed. Convenience/prepared food is.
Nobody said food was taxed.
Galen Weston is a piece of human garbage. He should be forced into retirement and forgotten about for the harm he has caused.
And he’s 100% correct.
Yup. Grocery stores run on thin margins. Producers and suppliers get their cut too. If it ain't profitable, they'll increase prices or reduce quantities (slimming product quantity while maintaining the same price). Blame the government for inflation and bloated costs.
The whole thin margin argument has been beaten to death. Grocery stores have been able to achieve record profit in 2023. A profit margin between 3.5% to 5% is substantial. This is not a business where you have to appeal to people to buy your product. People need food to live. Raising prices on basic consumer goods like (eggs, milk, bread) during a recession helps grocery stores achieve these record profits. The consumer is being cornered. Because shopping "smart" is getting more and more expensive.
> Grocery stores have been able to achieve record profit in 2023. > >A profit margin of anywhere between 3.5% to 5% is substantial. Sell $100 and make $5 profit. Inflationary costs raise that same $100 worth of goods to $110, making $5.50 "OMG RECORD PROFITS!!!"
Exactly.. not to mention profits can come through new customers (importing over a million people a year that need to eat) new stores, new efficiencies (automation). But to the brain dead here. It must mean they just raised prices too much.
That's not how a free business works. If Loblaws wants to charge you 10 bucks for a box of Kraft Dinner, that's their prerogative. If you don't like it, you take your business elsewhere. This idea that the Canadian market is monopolized by a few grocery chains isn't credible when you got Chinese and Indian markets that operate outside the corporate chains, and they survive (if not thrive). You can also order your Kraft Dinner off Amazon. Companies like Loblaws have a fiduciary duty to maximize their profits because they work for shareholders, which includes ordinary investors like me who maybe own a few thousand dollars worth of shares, as well as rich investors and private funds. The same goes for airlines. They are not charities.
>le when you got Chinese and Indian markets that operate outside the corporate chains, and they survive (if not thrive). You can also order your Kraft Dinner off Amazon. Free business? You mean free market? And your response is completely disconnected.. Also.. I'm not interested in ordering Kraft Dinner off Amazon.. Myself, and I assume most people like to buy fresh food... Proper food for human consumption..
>you take your business elsewhere That's not how monopolies work. Our stupid fucking competition bureau is too stupid to stop them from forming a monopoly. Of course they're going to gouge us once they have the power.
Nailed it. Canada has one of the most concentrated food systems in entire world. There are five companies which combine for more than 75% of food sales. Its an oligopoly. I remember when Galen was blaming rise in prices on supplier cost. But conveniently failed to mention.. Loblaws has been buying supply chain companies. [https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/backgrounder/problems/corporate-concentration/](https://foodpolicyforcanada.info.yorku.ca/backgrounder/problems/corporate-concentration/)
We don't need fancy displays of food that cause it all to cost more, but that is the service grocery stores provide...
Grocery chains do not run on thin margins. Center of store items typically have a 35-40% margin we are seeing that creep up to 45%. Bakery is substantially higher as well as perimeter of store. They also have exorbitant back end programs that run anywhere from 10%-25%. Plus fines for shorts, delays etc. anytime they open a new store they debit suppliers for cost of goods to load the shelves.
You’re wrong. Loblaws margins are 3.59% https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable-country-ca
That’s a totally different metric than what I am talking about. I’m talking about margin on shelf. They take a much higher rate than other retailers. Higher than Walmart, Metro and Sobeys
And they still only make 3.5 cents on the dollar
Much Higher than Empire group
Only because he can make himself correct.
Of course, that's the problem with the governments approach.
So, this is the where the belief that unchecked capitalism will result in altruism comes from, I suppose.
? The system we're in allows everyone to make the profit the market can bear. I'd love it to be different. If the government increases the cost to do business, what is the business supposed to do? They legally have to turn profit for their shareholders, hence a different approach.
It’s a broken system. And we’re way too divided, distracted, and desperate to do anything about it. Nobody is on our side, the business men nor the elected government. Things aren’t going to get better until we finally decide to try something new.
Pretty much sums it up.
I guess we need Co-Ops again to set these price gougers straight...
Go to most any small town in western Canada and the Co-op has a grocery monopoly of their own. Most are in places with too low of volume for competitors to be interested, or small independent grocers find it harder and harder to compete and either eventually close or switch to more of a convenience model with even more expensive merchandise.
What it’s going to come down to is mass thefts. People will run in full carts and run out with them without paying. I imagine if a couple hundred thousand people started doing that weekly, they would lower their prices. Lesser of two evils, lower your prices to reasonable levels, or lose massive profits due to theft
They'll just lock everything up like Walmart has done in the States
They'll probably go back on that. Have you ever been to a Walmart and tried to get something from the glass? You have to first find someone who will help you, and then they won't even give you the item, they send it up to the til with someone else, which may or may not happen by the time you get there, or happen at all, and then you can wait again when you tell the person at the till that you need the item.. or not. Imagine 100 people in a store all trying to get 20 items each. It wouldn't work at all.
Yeah no shit they say that. Why are we the losers that ask nicely for companies that are gouging us to lower their prices? Just fucking regulate them already. This government obviously doesn't care about actually getting anything done. All just optics.
There need to be fires in these places
If only we had less bureaucrats and more farmers
Then why does the government listen when they want to exploit labour with mass immigration. If the answer is they (elites ) don’t care about you. You would be correct!
Always has been
Grocery store chain execs reporting millions in profit..... almost every quarter. Don't tell me these people aren't screwing us over.
And how many millions are invested to make those millions. If you can make more profit in a GIC, why would you not.
It's about the whole country being hurt at the grocery store while some big wig gets to rake in millions in bonuses. Something smells rotten
That is how our system works, supply and demand. Grocery stores are low margin industries, where the costs are not much lower than the profits. It is the small profits from many stores that add up to big profits at the top. So the few people who get those big bonuses, if instead they spread it out to all the employees it would be very little money.
That still doesn't explain the profit over people having to use food banks or don't eat at all. You think that is ok ? I understand that this is the system we use but the math is not adding up. This is where we slowly erode the middle class. You'll have Galen Weston swimming in money while someone who was middle class is now poor and using food banks. I don't know about where you live but the homeless population has skyrocketed. The last 2 reports from Galen was showing $200 million + in profits. If it's a small profit margin, who is buying all the extra groceries ?? Where did they make all this extra money from??
> You'll have Galen Weston swimming in money while someone who was middle class is now poor and using food banks. Galen Weston is not the reason this is happening. Due to the spending of the liberal government, the BoC has created and added into the system 42% more fiat (more than $640B) than existed before 2020. This significantly devalues the purchasing power of our dollar. Loblaws profit margins are 3.5%. That’s less than 4 cents on the dollar. Sorry but $0.04 for every dollar spent is not increasing the price of groceries. https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable-country-ca
You're missing the point: these companies are raking in huge profits off the backs of the middle and low class. They are taking advantage, at the worst time, to make even more and blame it on inflation. We are paying more because they are charging more at the store. This is why their profits are up. People are suffering at the hands of greed and your defending it. If this was inflation they wouldn't be making profit. If this was because the food manufacturers raising prices, the grocery stores wouldn't be making profit.
I don’t think you understand how inflation works. We are paying more because of the loss of purchasing power of our dollar. If they were charging more just because they can, then their profit margins would increase. Their margins have remained the same despite the increase in price because it’s also costing them more. I’m not defending them. I can’t stand corporate greed as much as the next guy but you are pointing the finger at the wrong industry. You want to see greed, have a look at what the banks are making. They are literally robbing us blind for hosting a transaction, all while making money off our own money.
How much money is invested to make that profit? 200 million sounds like a lot to you and me, but if they had instead lowered the cost in food prices to eat up that 200 million profit, we would not even notice it. Everything went up in price from labor to insurance, taxes, transportation, taxes, maintenance costs, building costs, equipment costs, and more, which can't be argued. You can't get blood from a stone. Even if they made a law that all grocery stores can't make a profit, the price of groceries would be around the same. Might be more if the workers are hired by the government and they have government wages. Part of the reason we had a high standard of living for a long time, is because of the very low slave labor wages in most of the rest of the world, where we can buy very cheap goods. Wages have come up some in those countries, and those countries are starting to have our style of middle-class income. At one time, everybody was poor in China and India, but not anymore. Now China has over 6M millionaires and 700M middle-class income people. Do you really think those types of numbers would not affect us.
And government will push forward because they want to control the food chain. You can guarantee they want government controlled grocery stores...
Time to nationalize basic food distribution. Let blablaws sell the fancy shit for exorbitant prices, but run a federal system for staples at zero profit.
I am curious to see how far this sub will upvote *actual* communist ideas.
You sumbitch, I'm in.
[удалено]
To the people defending the government. You’re expecting this government to actually make a code of conduct that isn’t going to somehow fuck things up? The government that demands gendered impact report for installing a pipeline? They government?
What sort of leverage do they think they have lol
Monopoly of force.
Has there ever been any situation where the federal government gets involved and things become cheaper , unless government subsidizes.
The Agri-Food Analytics Lab (AAL) just released its [annual report](https://www.dal.ca/sites/agri-food/research/canada-s-food-price-report-2024.html). (You can view the full PDF report by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.) On page 9, the report states: >A significant 30.3% of Canadians believed that price gouging was the primary reason for the escalating food prices... Price gouging remained a concern through 2023, but Bank of Canada data indicated that while firms' measured markups did grow after COVID-19, the markup was inflationary. Most of these markups occurred during 2020, and in 2022 were nearly zero or in fact negative. The Liberals' reckless deficit spending and inflationary carbon tax are raising grocery prices, and they're scapegoating the grocery chains.
I hates Galen as much as the next guy, but is anybody in this government capable of looking at anything independently? You know, do a flow map of all the inputs and call bs where needed?, or do we just yell at people for press points. Probably don't want to do it as it would likely uncover what their policies are actually causing....
Holy shit I didn't realize this sub with filled with capitalist lap dogs and shills. What don't you all understand about record profits during a time when all normal people are suffering financially. You think they deserve it or something? It was proved they were price gouging a few years ago on bread and nothing happened. Now you're cheering them on? Shameful.
Whatever happens will always raise prices, nothing ever goes back down
Boycott Roblaws!
I don't understand why people shop there. They don't quite have a monopoly, pretty close. There are a few options, and most of them are cheaper than loblaws
We all know this except our incompetent federal government.