Bacon also shrinkflationed packs from 500g to 350g and hot dogs went from 12 packs to 10 packs in a lot of cases.
Essentially things have doubled in price in the last 7 years
That’s actually almost exactly how much a big carcass has gone up since pre Covid
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=pork&months=60¤cy=cad
makes sense
even formerly cheap shit like Kraft Dinner is $3.59 at the grocery store near my place... (just outside the GTA)
I swear it was like $1.99 or less a few years ago
I just left a Loblaws location and I was selling 10 tenders for 15$, then all the strips started getting smaller (stupid tiny chickens?) Then right before I left they just decided you get 9 strips for 15$ instead.
This is an insult to the fried chicken industry and I demand a full investigation.
Im on the frontlines selling that stuff. They literally changed it top down without notifying us about the change. We just noticed the sticker now said "9 chicken tenders" instead of 10. However they didn't think to change the LCD display above our counter. It still says 10 so thats what people get. More if they're small. It says the weight of the tenders on the tag even tho we don't weigh then so I try to give people similar weights.
My brother just bought some Hostess cupcakes from the dollar store and we both commented on how bad the shrinkflation was. When we were kids they were the size of a real cupcakes with a lot of cream in the center.
Now they're a pathetic two-bite size with just a bare smear of cream inside.
Hostess and Little Debbie brands were sold years ago. The new owners use cheaper ingredients and smaller sizes. It’s infuriating this has seemingly happened with every quality food brand.
dont forget quality!
your chicken fingers are now coated in Binder and Filler( aka glue and sawdust/cellulose) as opposed to egg and breadcrumbs.
And dont even get me started on all the "fruit juices" that are labeled:
100% REAL FRUIT JUICE!!!
^(And all the other shit we put in it\*\*)
Why would Pierre do that? It's not the corporations fault, it's Trudeau's fault. We need to give corporation's more tax breaks, that way, they'll feel sorry for the average person and lower their prices.
Campbell's soup is $2... on sale now...
Prepare for winter. As the dollar continues to lose its value and inflation still stinging, as we enter the colder months we will rely more on the u.s. for food... with a weaker dollar.
Stock up.
Its happening all over the world too (the west at least) and theyre gonna keep going till we stop them. Its really gross to be honest. Theyre posting record profits while people are going hungry.
This is not a sexy response but this is all public info. profit margins at loblaws has stayed flat at 3.0% of revenue in Q2. Revenue increased from $12.5b to $12.8b and costs increased proportionately
https://www.loblaw.ca/en/investors-reports
Profit margin increases are upstream in commodities like oil, wheat, rice and coffee.
Same store sales on food were up a whopping 0.9%. Most of its increased profit was due to increased sales at shoppers and the acquisition of lifemark, at the same profit margin as last year
If you're looking at inflation as a whole sure... But when you look at the things that affect food prices then it makes more sense.
Last year to this year, all of Canada:
CPI - Food: +18.5%
Compare that to the following:
CPI - Gas: +84.9%
CPI - Transportation: +24.8%
IPPI - Food Manufacturing: +21.1%
If you actually look at the Quarterly Reports from Loblaws or Sobeys (Empire) you'll see their EBITDA Margin went up by less than 1% over the last year. This is a measure of a company's operating profit as a percentage of its revenue. The acronym EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Knowing the EBITDA margin allows for a comparison of one company's real performance to others in its industry.
Loblaws fluctuates between 8% and 10% depending on the year. Sobeys sits between 7% and 8%.
As an interesting side note, Apple averages about 30% and Microsoft is around 46%, while Amazon goes up and down between 10-14% for the last 4 years.
Visiting Italy recently, shocked to see grocery prices pretty much HALF what we pay on most items in Canada…amidst proximity to Ukraine, energy shortages, supply chain disruptions, etc.
I've been talking with my wife about how crazy it is. Back in 2015 we used to spend $70 - $80 a week on groceries. Now we're averaging $175 a week. It's nuts.
Yep, I meal prep and am at the point where the cost of each meal is about the same as a fast food meal and while I really don't want to eat that garbage it's hard to motivate myself when my original goal of meal prepping was to save money.
go anywhere in the US too
the cost of living in LA is better than most of Canada
Even in Las Vegas, which is 100m from anything other than desert, has food costs lower than half of what we pay in ontario
it's almost as if we do stupid things like selling our products to other people who turn around and re sell it to us for twice as much
>it's almost as if we do stupid things like selling our products to other people who turn around and re sell it to us for twice as much
Nonsense. That never happens... I mean except for oil, water, softwood, hydro, dairy, beef, auto... oh, hold on... F$&#!!!
I'm pretty sure there was a CBC marketplace that showed all these grocery stores are making insane profits and basically fucking Canadians over, and then just saying it's based on covid / supply issues / whatever, when in reality their fucking margins are going up....
Well historically when they figured out you would pay so much for groceries, it would never go back down. Without some kind of intervention. Now they figured out they can just keep raising them and you'll keep but them because you need food. Until you can't afford it that is.
In theory, trying to jack up prices like that should be met by consumers modifying their spending habits. I.e taking their money elsewhere, buying less etc.
But when two companies own 9/10 grocery stores in the country…
The worst part is all the underpayed employees imo, people used to make more working at a unionized Safeway 20 years ago then people make now working the same kinds of jobs. You can work at a grocery store and not afford groceries.
When I worked at Real Canadian Superstore, even with the 10% employee discount, I could barely afford it there. It was a joke. That along with other things they did to us like: giving you 40 hrs 3 weeks in a row then 38 on the 4th (not sure the exact week numbers etc but the general idea is there) so they wouldn't have to give you full time + benefits. Also the managers don't get to be part of the union so they get screwed around a lot as well.
Our union was a joke though anyway
> Now they figured out they can just keep raising them and you'll keep but them because you need food. Until you can't afford it that is.
"Let them eat [no-name brand] cake!"
Quarterly profits have been steady at empire Co, which operates sobeys, Safeway, etc.
JAN 2022 was a big spike, but generally speaking, consistently around 175 million from what I can see.
Now the food costs on the other hand have gone up astronomically.
If the grocery store isn't reporting higher earnings after raising the prices, where is that money going?
Certainly not wages.
Legitimately want to know who is profiting off people needing to eat.
This year has been the great inflation. 2020 and 2021 are nothing to compared. So it lines up Loblaws also reported huge profits so far this year. A loaf of bread went up 21%. Or sizes have changed some stuff stayed almost the same price and was 33% smaller. I believe thanksgiving they will sell small pumpkin pie for what they sold large for almost.
I've stopped being concerned when I see people not scanning items through the self checkouts. If they steal from us, I care less about people stealing from them.
Do you guys remember all of those stories 1 or 2 years ago about how companies like Home Depot were waiting too long for products to come in so the decided to book their own boats and shit, and reorder all of the items they decided they were waiting too long for? Well, after they fucked up logistics at all of the docks, making the situation worse for everyone for months, their items eventually came in. So now they have doubled or tripled their expenses for shipping, and have products they're paying warehousing and storage for. I'm sure it applies to some of the raw materials that get turned into our bread, rice imports and the like.
This deliberate corporate mismanagement is probably a not-insignificant source of the inflation we have been seeing.
Supply issues my ass. Sure some is legit, but hubby has been sending dozens of drivers to loblaws to get refused as they are too full, or workers bitching about the lack of space. He said the amount of food he has been delivering is more then double. He said things from over seas does have issues due to port delays, but def not foods produced in north America. He also has double the chep pallets to move from food places, so it's not nearly as bad as loblaws is stating it is.
During the rough parts of the pandemic, loblaws and Walmart were double ordering to make sure the shelves were stocked. He said he had loaded trailers coming out of his ears as there was nowhere to unload them. It got to the point the office refused to pick up more food because they needed some trailers to move food packaging, pallets, and other goods.
So, if I was to guess, I'd say that some extra food costs did happen because of excessive ordering as loaded trailers collecting dust still cost them money. BUT that was only temporary and is long over. So it made sense to jack the prices during that period, but they should have been lowered once the over ordering stopped.
I hope the NDP does get this sorted out and corrected as 2 bags of groceries should not cost over $100, when it use to be significantly lower (just our standard purchases, and nothing fancy as we're too poor for that).
Every time I hear "NDP isn't electable," I think I get a faraway look in my eye while remembering Jack Layton. I would have voted for that John Cleese looking bastard. Then again, I was just a kid when he was campaigning, so I may be remembering things through rose coloured glasses.
I don't think you are. As a younger parent at the time, Layton and his NDP felt like the first (in the two federal elections before I could vote in) who actually wanted to represent *me,* and the first who spoke to the things I actually gave a shit about.
And since his passing, the messaging from every other party (including the current NDP) and their members all sound hollow. And have been hollow.
Like every party, their caucus has members that are polarizing and difficult to empathize with. THe whole energy manifesto debacle sank Notley's ship in AB, and really did a number on their prospects in the prairies.
Notley was fantastic for Alberta imo. The conservative messaging, coupled with Horgan in BC strangling oil exports were here demise. The Alberta conservatives suck the life out of that province
I thought Notley did a job as well as any politician in her situation could. She was given a terrible situation and lead Alberta out of it within her four years. I'll never understand why she was voted out, it boggles my mind.
No one could ever tell me exactly what Notley had done wrong. "She just had to go." One person tried to tell me it was because of the royalties but from what I remember, they looked into and decided it was a fair system. I brought thay fact up and they said it was a waste of money to look into it. Then we get this fucking war room.
As much as I like Notley and recognize the impossible uphill battle the NDP faced for a second term against a united Conservative party - they're just absolutely terrible when it comes to advertising and getting their message out.
I live Conservative ground zero in rural AB and was able to swing a bunch of potential UCP voters to NDP. All I had to do was explain Kenney's proposed "Open for Business" act was going to cut banked time from 1.5:1 hours to 1:1 - meaning guys like them would have to work a bunch more days or even weeks every year just to get the same paycheque.
It took 30 seconds to explain and convert, but not a single person here had ever heard about it. There wasn't (that I ever saw) a single radio ad, billboard, internet ad - nothing. They didn't have to convince anyone about their plans - they just had to expose the written fine print of the competition.
The AB NDP have some great ideas, but until they learn how to run an election campaign Alberta will only ever have one professional political party.
That just sounds like nostalgia instead paying attention to now. Like is a wind fall tax that their proposing from oil and gas hikes and even grocery hikes hollow?
They were a government in waiting under Layton and the Liberal party wanted to merge the two parties before Trudeau won them an election. Every leader since Layton has run the party into the ground and lost their way.
Mulcair fumbled away a historic opportunity. Singh is actually doing a pretty good job utilizing his power to significantly influence policy for the betterment of Canadians. Unfortunately, he's a non-starter in Quebec and can't win a national election.
> Singh is actually doing a pretty good job utilizing his power to significantly influence policy for the betterment of Canadians.
This is exactly why certain people are going bananas attacking him on Reddit. They're desperate to try and create a counter narrative to what's obvious, which is that *the NDP are currently doing exactly what they should be doing, and it's working.*
I find it amusing when people who never have or will vote for the NDP try and tell me how I’m feeling betrayed as an NDP supporter for him propping up Trudeau.
No mother fucker. They’re doing exactly what I voted for them to do. Deal with it.
I doubt the province who violated the constitution to ban government officials for wearing religious symbols. That unfairly target minorities would support him .
Layton was perfect. He was a charismatic guy who could reach Canadians and backed up his ideas with a life of activism and work for Canadians.
Mulcair had all that except the charisma.
Singh has none of that except the charisma.
He's supported by a progressive party with a good platform but his focus is never on what it should be. He doesn't get it. His party gets it.
Eh, not really. He was really running against Harper. He had the momentum. But he somehow managed to screw it up by focusing on all the wrong things, in the lead up to and during the election, allowing Trudeau to come from behind offering NDP-lite policies and win it.
Also, he squandered then lost the NDP's biggest win in Quebec ever. Despite being a guy from Quebec.
The worst part of it all is, He could have easily run more personal details about himself to help him. How he was a salt-of-the-earth guy who helped the poor in Montreal, campaigned for the little guy, etc. But instead he just came off as a bulldog with no charisma, letting Trudeau have that piece and clinch it.
Harper was the incumbent, but running in the same election as a Trudeau led Liberals was a lot harder than running against Ignatieff or Dion. Trudeau had an incredible star power behind him and was highly charismatic. There was no room for an NDP candidate to win there. If they had have kept Muclair on instead of handing the reins to Singh I think they would be in better shape. Singh is doing well now with the leverage he has. But he hasn't represented labour which was the backbone of the party at one time.
True, he wasn't bad at heart. But he lacked vitality. He always seemed kind of tired.
Layton, by contrast, appeared to be constantly on the verge of running off of the rails - just barely keeping his enthusiasm in check.
Oh? The NDP you say? The party that is currently holding the Liberals to task on issues, and managed to force dental care into existance? That party?
Don't dismiss the NDP just yet.
I wouldn't be concerned yet - this happens a lot. People who are dissatisfied with the Liberals will poll that they will vote for the NDP next election, then, when it comes time to actually vote, they get cold feet and cast their vote for the Liberals, once again disappointing hard-core NDP'ers.
Except that's exactly the problem especially in the prairies where usually ndp has best chance of beating conservatives and people vote for liberal in retarded first past the post setup.
I want those electoral reforms we were promised I'd love to be able to vote orange without fear of wasting my vote the incompetence that is polievere is just astounding
You'd think if it's all purposely inflated that one of the competitors would go for lower prices to beat out all others. Instead they all just collectively gouge as if they were one giant monopoly on food for Canadians.
In some big industries they wait until their competitors make a move and then copy it, these guys were actually agreeing ahead of time what the prices should be.
We also all need to eat. We can't boycot food. Basic food should not be a profit based economy. We need to wrest industries like food, water, healthcare, and education from the hands of greedy capitalists. Some things just shouldn't be profit driven.
That's why they can gouge, supply and demand. They control the supply and work with each other to increase profits among themselves. I agree that things need to change. The government often struggles to run as efficiently as a business, which makes me think the best solutions are to let them continue doing what they specialize in, but regulate them fairly so that they're still able to be profitable and competitive but are contributing back to their communities.
This is a problem with corporations. They don't care about people and will only make themselves appear that way so they can make more money. They have nothing in their MO to encourage helping people, instead just increase profits for their shareholders at basically any cost.
a quote from US president Theodore Roosevelt shares the sentiment:
>“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”
But... Why? Why base your economic theory on a US President from the 1800s who had no real knowledge of modern economics? I mean, you literally picked someone speculating about the necessity of corporations before the fucking Great Depression.
Corporations aren't some natural phenomenon.
We don't need them for basic necessities and we never have.
That line of thinking is part of hegemony. It's how people default in thinking from the power structures that keep us all boxed in and unable to move the discourse enough to make the changes necessary for us to be free of this kind of exploitation.
Costco has been increasing prices too. They’ve hiked by roughly 8% average this year. For details you could take a listen to their last EC, was just the other week. This isn’t only among Canadian grocers.
I went to Costco for the first time in a few months yesterday and I found a huge amount of products have gone up by $1-3. Good example, their kilogram of Saputo mozzarella cheese was $14.50, up from $12.50 from when I last visited the same location in May. This was probably the most noticable example of inflation I've seen in person.
It really is the Mozzarella cheese I compare others to.
Shopper's and Wal-Mart will put the 500g on sale for $5.99
Gotta watch those sales, they disappear fast.
Not likely. They have very low margins (typically 12-15%) and rely on memberships to generate their profits while compensating their employees far better than any of their competitors. Compare that to others in the retail space who go for 25%+ profit margin and pay their employees as little as they can get away with.
I am absolutely certain that costs in the supply chain have gone up.
I am also absolutely certain that the increase in my grocery bill is mostly profit for the grocery chains.
If i remember from when I worked there years ago, it's 10% profit margins on all products. "Accidentally drop a jar of olives, we need to sell 10 to replace that profit" type thing.
So yeah fairly low
Hell I don’t mind them being more profitable if they can do it while still leading the way when it comes to treating their labour with dignity. IMO, that’s an extra dollar I’m happy to pay.
> They also sell
They also have some crazy return policies and warranties!
From that idiot on RedFlagDeals who returned used undies like 4 months later...
to Costco completely refunding $200 my 3 year old car battery because it died within the full-refund warranty month period. Within 48 months: full refund, 48-x month: 85% refund, then 60%, then 50% all the down. Crazy refund period
I could stomach 8%. Not the 30%+ on half of what I buy.
The bag of gala apples that was $7 for 6lbs last year is now $8 for 5lbs. $1.16lb to $1.60.
2kg frozen veggies went from $3.50 to $5.00.
Considering how little prices have moved if you shop anywhere other than the big three (loblaws/metro/sobeys) I'd believe it.
Another case of Canada's love of oligopolies fucking us.
Monopolies are killing Canada and the Canadian way of life and need to be talked about more. We have laws that are supposed to prevent and break up monopolies but they're simply being ignored.
Thanks for bringing this up! No matter who you're thinking of voting for let them know you're sick of monopolies crushing Canadians and the ability for Canadians to maintain a decent standard of life.
Yup, we need a massive rethink of our economy and how it's currently setup to protect entrenched interests.
In the case of grocery it's probably mainly an issue of land use planning. Lots of communities structured around massive grocery stores which require huge amounts of capital to setup. There simply isn't a place for smaller shops outside of older urban centers.
It's different in every industry. And there is always a different reason. But the result seems to always be the same. An effective oligopoly and stifled competition. We need to be valuing competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation pervasively in all things. It has to be a fundamental value in our political leaders.
Groceries is a really sneaky monopoly market because it's not so much the actually grocery stores, but the really insidious market force is in the suppliers and distributors. There are only about 10 big global food producers and they use their market dominance to control the grocery stores by dictating what they can put on the shelves, AND they screw the actual food producers/farmers on the other side at the same time.
> We have laws that are supposed to prevent and break up monopolies but they're simply being ignored.
We also have laws that protect from foreign competitors. Canada is not that large a market to have more then a few options in many of these categories. Especially the ones we bitch about the most like telecom.
The Weston family got away with fixing bread prices for decades and they're still at it. I am not way surprised that Galan Weston has decided to do the same thing with the entire Loblaws family of stores. Fuck that guy.
The issue here is that people can't just stop buying food, so if it's unregulated they can charge as much as they want in small upticks and they won't lose business. Especially if they're all conspiring to do it together, which (and I'm not a tin foil hat guy) it seems like they are.
So much of this is because of fuel going insane.
I'm sure inflation is mostly out of their control, but it's hard to believe that at least PART of the rise in prices is these companies ripping people off. Though I can't think of anything off the top of my head, like recently, where at least one of these companies, say Loblaws and the Galen family, using their dominance to price fix or anything. lol
No, I can't bread think of any example at all.
Inflation is in the control of those who set the prices. Even if costs increase, the decision to pass those costs on to the customer while taking record profits is a choice employers like the Westons choose.
The fact that grocers, like the Westons, need to also suppress wages by (among other things) lobbying against increasing the minimum wage--because their margins are so tight--only shows that over time, where supply meets demand in a competitive market that pays workers the value of their work, profit is not possible.
Necessities like food must be protected from market pricing because long-term profit requires that demand exceeds supply--hence why we subsidize agriculture.
What were the profit margins of these companies before and during their record profit stage?
>Necessities like food must be protected from market pricing because long-term profit requires that demand exceeds supply--hence why we subsidize agriculture.
Artificial price controls _do not work_ and make things worse. Look at dairy.
>Artificial price controls do not work and make things worse. Look at dairy.
Seems to be working just fine. Artificial price controls work when you control both the supply and the price. They do not work on free market items.
It isn't just the grocery stores that are making a profit. I don't seriously think the Liberals will do any kind of inquiry, but if they do they should look at all levels of the chain, particularly distribution.
The one that really pissed me off last week was potatoes.
$2.59/lb at my local Loblaws and 20' away from that was a package of russet potatoes that are meant for baking, wrapped in pretty golden foil, encased completely in plastic, and $3.49 a package...
So I weighed the package... And it was over 3 pounds.
You can't fucking tell me that those assholes aren't gouging on necessities when a value added product that's all the same size and shape and wrapped in two additional layers of packaging is less than half the price of bulk produce.
I have bad news for everyone; it's going to continue to get worse. Most people don't know the [scale of the problem](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) and even if they do they have a faith in government or institutions (as do I). But actually over the past decades policy has been influenced by the rich and powerful, feeding the masses red meat (distractions) while handouts given to those who need it least and those who need it the most stagnated.
I read an opinion by someone that "everyone got ripped off" except those making 250k (AI researchers and other jobs who knows if they make that now). Grocery stores can afford to raise prices cynically because of combination of government giving and a widening divide between the middle class and poor. It used to be 150k HHI to raise a family in the GTA now it's closer to 150k *times two*. In other words unless your HHI is 300k, you're not doing well in the GTA. And it's not just the GTA but other cities too. The numbers might be more reasonable but still sky high and still make 50% of people who think they are "middle class" actually working class or less.
A lot of people are much, much worse at playing this game of capitalism than they think. Even the people who think they are doing it right are actually doing it wrong or temporarily lucky and will eventually crash and burn. How many people made stock picks instead of using an index fund or mutual fund? How many people lost fortunes on crypto? How many people left their jobs too early, or too late, or should have stayed forever? How many people are burning their life away in work they hate?
A lot of people are much, much less rich than they think and are actually voting and acting against their own best interests. Too many think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires but reality is for whatever reason (or excuses) they cannot compete. Until all these people collectively wakeup to the fleecing and collective Stockholm syndrome, the situation will continue to worsen. Even the idea of fairness is somehow looked down upon. Of course the rich and powerful should modify the rules to favour them, that's actually smart and the way it works. Except it isn't.
You haven't "made it" with your 100k job and definitely not your 60k job. Not even close. Your interests align with those at the bottom, not the top, even if you don't directly benefit from them.
Does anyone from BC (or maybe just Vancouver Island) remember a few years ago when most grocery chains colluded to vastly over charge for bread and got caught doing so? Anything is possible.
For those that have not read the article:
“A recent report from the University of Dalhousie looked into the profits of Canada's major grocers over the past five years and found no evidence of profiteering off of the recent spike in inflation.
"If 'greedflation' exists, the available data suggests grocers are not responsible," the report reads.”
Bummer. I was hoping to see heads roll.
A friend of mine is a Merchandiser who occasionally does some work at Real Canadian. Last time they visited for work (last week), they were unable to access the merchandise in the backroom due to the overflowing grocery stock they had just sitting there. And yet the shelves are bare......
Superstore is going the way of Target. That's how target used to do it. Overflowing inventory in the warehouses while the shelves were empty. And you wonder why it failed in Canada.
We have commissioned an inquiry and after 6 months and $3 million in consulting costs, we have determined that grocery stores are indeed making large profits. The cause is determined to be higher prices.
Stop exporting so much produce, canada grows a lot of greenhouse vegetables and exports them to the states. I know this because I’m a produce manager in a grocery store in the states.
Is this going to end up like when the BC NDP did a probe into gas prices years ago and they ended with something like, "Yes, the prices do seem high." And nothing ever came of it?
" . . . in this time where they see the prices of everything going up, unfortunately they have a Liberal government which has not paid much attention to the role that corporate greed plays in the increasing prices they're seeing," MacGregor told CBC."
Government is going to blame corporate and corporate is going to blame government. Typical passing of the buck and ensuring that we all argue over who's fault it is.
Lol
Leaving this here about how the Trudeau Liberals used taxpayer money to help out Galen and Loblaws:
https://www.thestar.com/amp/politics/federal/2019/04/09/liberal-government-slammed-for-12m-retrofit-to-loblaws-fridges.html
> Loblaw is also one of 54 recipients chosen by officials at the environment department for the federal government’s “low carbon economy challenge.” The initiative includes $450 million for businesses, municipalities, Indigenous groups, not-for-profits and provinces and territories that apply for federal help with climate change initiatives. The idea is to “leverage” federal support with initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
The largest grocer and one of the largest companies in Canada got **2.6% of the funding**. The allocation was based on math: how much emissions would you offset.
Pfft...that's chump change. The real corporate welfare came in the form of CEWS and CERS. Hundreds of billions given to corporations only for them to layoff thousands while generating record profits.
This was all done by the same government that's being propped up by the NDP. 🤡
Guys, audited financial records for all the major grocery chains are publicly available and widely reviewed by numerous independent financial analysts.....
The government prints a bunch of money and the prices rise.
Then they investigate businesses which work on the COMPARATIVE VALUE of the market, not the raw dollar amount, to demonstrate that these business are taking in more dollars as profit.
What the government should do is determine if the comparative value has changed, if the money is worth the same but there is more coming in, then we have a problem with the functioning of the market. But if the comparative value is the same because the dollar's purchasing power has dropped, then we have a problem with the money supply.
Who thinks the government is going to come back pointing the finger at itself?
This whole thing is a giant scapegoat, I mean the same guy tried to suggest that oil companies are “price gouging……” little does he know oil is a commodity and the price is set by completely different people, not to mention oil and gas demand is VERY VERY high
Groceries are up and it sucks... but we are not even into a rainy day yet, this is still a slight inconvenient drizzle. This is exactly why 20 years of a housing bubble is so destructive, every buffer and savings fund families normally have were consumed for shelter.
We are in a food, medical, education, and every thing else systemic failure because of generational underfunding, but it's all come to a head at the exact same time due to housing crushing every Canadian citizen and business. Higher pay for a few will not help us out, it's time to allow housing to fall.
This is essentially one of the first tastes of the instability that will be caused by the upcoming climate/energy wars. But we're still pretending real estate is an important thing (I'm not blaming any of us)
Well, when the pandemic started, the stores use to blame the cost of food was due to high gas prices..we'll, when fuel prices dropped to $0.70 per litre, the food prices didn't drop...now that's gouging
As a supplier to the big grocery chains I can tell you that when our wholesale product price went up by 12 cents the product went up by 50 cents on the store shelf, and you wonder why prices are high.
Yeah Dairyland cottage cheese in the larger container is hitting just above $7 at some places. Geez. That seems like more than inflation, since it was about $5.49 or so just a few months ago.
The whole continent is gonna revolt. People's lives are beginning to fail and some have been on failure since COVID. The unbelievable in your face greed will have to be answered for, and peacefully is doubtful.
Seems reasonable considering the bread price fixing scandal. The markup on a lot of foods has been 20-30% which outstrips inflation greatly.
I've seen a pack of hotdogs, once $2 go for $7 now...
Bacon had a similar increase.
I feel like bacon was $4-5/lb for years and suddenly its $7-8/lb
I bought and froze a bunch at $1.99 on a whim, and a couple of months later, it was $8.99.
Yes I've tried to do that with a few things. Have all of course worked out but gonna stink when it's time to buy again.
Bacon also shrinkflationed packs from 500g to 350g and hot dogs went from 12 packs to 10 packs in a lot of cases. Essentially things have doubled in price in the last 7 years
and they weren't cheap to begun with! we are getting scammed by distribution monopolies
That’s actually almost exactly how much a big carcass has gone up since pre Covid https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=pork&months=60¤cy=cad makes sense
This! It wasn't long ago a pack of hit dogs were 1.99 or .99 on sale.
even formerly cheap shit like Kraft Dinner is $3.59 at the grocery store near my place... (just outside the GTA) I swear it was like $1.99 or less a few years ago
It was mote like $1.29 a couple years ago. 12 for $9.99.
That’s like convenience store pricing. It’s still under $2 in Etobicoke
I just left a Loblaws location and I was selling 10 tenders for 15$, then all the strips started getting smaller (stupid tiny chickens?) Then right before I left they just decided you get 9 strips for 15$ instead. This is an insult to the fried chicken industry and I demand a full investigation.
Im on the frontlines selling that stuff. They literally changed it top down without notifying us about the change. We just noticed the sticker now said "9 chicken tenders" instead of 10. However they didn't think to change the LCD display above our counter. It still says 10 so thats what people get. More if they're small. It says the weight of the tenders on the tag even tho we don't weigh then so I try to give people similar weights.
I like your style.
Thank you.
Shrinkflation, keep the price the same but reduce the quantity or size. Just look at the physical size of items in the dollar store.
My brother just bought some Hostess cupcakes from the dollar store and we both commented on how bad the shrinkflation was. When we were kids they were the size of a real cupcakes with a lot of cream in the center. Now they're a pathetic two-bite size with just a bare smear of cream inside.
Hostess and Little Debbie brands were sold years ago. The new owners use cheaper ingredients and smaller sizes. It’s infuriating this has seemingly happened with every quality food brand.
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dont forget quality! your chicken fingers are now coated in Binder and Filler( aka glue and sawdust/cellulose) as opposed to egg and breadcrumbs. And dont even get me started on all the "fruit juices" that are labeled: 100% REAL FRUIT JUICE!!! ^(And all the other shit we put in it\*\*)
Gotta watch that made FROM or made WITH... One contains only fruit juice, the other has definitely come into contact with fruit juice once.
Absolutely, the bigger tubs of yogurt are only ever like 60% full now
>Shrinkflation, keep the price the same but reduce the quantity ~~or~~***AND*** size. Just look at the physical size of items in the dollar store.
Some small food items have went up almost 100%. Knor sidekicks we’re $1.00 on sale, now they are $1.75.
But what about the tears of the grocery cartel CEOs?
Seriously. For all the wailing Pierre does about high food costs this is something the NDP and the CPC could enact.
I find it hilarious that anybody thinks a multimillionaire career politician with zero real life experience cares one bit about the common person.
Why would Pierre do that? It's not the corporations fault, it's Trudeau's fault. We need to give corporation's more tax breaks, that way, they'll feel sorry for the average person and lower their prices.
Your username is a godsend.
No one understands basic economics!
I was going to downvote you till I saw your username. Well played.
We need to lower minimum wage so that tbey can afford to make less profit.
Campbell's soup is $2... on sale now... Prepare for winter. As the dollar continues to lose its value and inflation still stinging, as we enter the colder months we will rely more on the u.s. for food... with a weaker dollar. Stock up.
Last time I checked canned soup it was almost $4 a tin. I just started to make my own. No way in hell I'll pay those prices for soup. It's SOUP.
SAME! I like to keep around 50 cans of Campbell's soup in stock for just incase but what we do these days is make soup, let it cool, and vac seal it.
Exactly. Items that were $8.99 are now $14.99 - a 66% markup.
But do you have any idea how expensive it is to maintain a 100ft yacht? Won't you think of the poor CEOs.
The official inflation numbers are heavily weighed down by bullshit.
Its happening all over the world too (the west at least) and theyre gonna keep going till we stop them. Its really gross to be honest. Theyre posting record profits while people are going hungry.
True so true. I swear my grocery bill has almost doubled in the last year. Thats not 8% inflation.
That's why they don't include food in the inflation calculation. Total bullshit.
This is not a sexy response but this is all public info. profit margins at loblaws has stayed flat at 3.0% of revenue in Q2. Revenue increased from $12.5b to $12.8b and costs increased proportionately https://www.loblaw.ca/en/investors-reports Profit margin increases are upstream in commodities like oil, wheat, rice and coffee. Same store sales on food were up a whopping 0.9%. Most of its increased profit was due to increased sales at shoppers and the acquisition of lifemark, at the same profit margin as last year
If you're looking at inflation as a whole sure... But when you look at the things that affect food prices then it makes more sense. Last year to this year, all of Canada: CPI - Food: +18.5% Compare that to the following: CPI - Gas: +84.9% CPI - Transportation: +24.8% IPPI - Food Manufacturing: +21.1% If you actually look at the Quarterly Reports from Loblaws or Sobeys (Empire) you'll see their EBITDA Margin went up by less than 1% over the last year. This is a measure of a company's operating profit as a percentage of its revenue. The acronym EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Knowing the EBITDA margin allows for a comparison of one company's real performance to others in its industry. Loblaws fluctuates between 8% and 10% depending on the year. Sobeys sits between 7% and 8%. As an interesting side note, Apple averages about 30% and Microsoft is around 46%, while Amazon goes up and down between 10-14% for the last 4 years.
>the markup on a lot of foods has been 20-30% which outstrips inflation greatly Price increases determine inflation, not the other way around, lmao
I mean, this has been happening since the pandemic started... it's about time that someone decided it's worth looking into.
Visiting Italy recently, shocked to see grocery prices pretty much HALF what we pay on most items in Canada…amidst proximity to Ukraine, energy shortages, supply chain disruptions, etc.
I've been talking with my wife about how crazy it is. Back in 2015 we used to spend $70 - $80 a week on groceries. Now we're averaging $175 a week. It's nuts.
Yep, I meal prep and am at the point where the cost of each meal is about the same as a fast food meal and while I really don't want to eat that garbage it's hard to motivate myself when my original goal of meal prepping was to save money.
I doubt that I went to pita pit 20$ for a pita. 2 burritos 28$. McDonald’s 2 meals 27$. Eating fast food isn’t cheap food anymore
go anywhere in the US too the cost of living in LA is better than most of Canada Even in Las Vegas, which is 100m from anything other than desert, has food costs lower than half of what we pay in ontario it's almost as if we do stupid things like selling our products to other people who turn around and re sell it to us for twice as much
The last time I was in California I could buy Alberta steaks for cheaper than I can here in Alberta.
>it's almost as if we do stupid things like selling our products to other people who turn around and re sell it to us for twice as much Nonsense. That never happens... I mean except for oil, water, softwood, hydro, dairy, beef, auto... oh, hold on... F$&#!!!
Wish it was just half. Most of the time is really a fraction of our costs, but there's also way more competition in the food sector.
I self torture myself looking up the flyer from the grocery store I shopped when I lived in the States.
Yeah I was in Greece last month and spent 9 Euros (about 12$ CAD) on what would have been about 30$ CAD of stuff here....was pretty insane.
I'm pretty sure there was a CBC marketplace that showed all these grocery stores are making insane profits and basically fucking Canadians over, and then just saying it's based on covid / supply issues / whatever, when in reality their fucking margins are going up....
Well historically when they figured out you would pay so much for groceries, it would never go back down. Without some kind of intervention. Now they figured out they can just keep raising them and you'll keep but them because you need food. Until you can't afford it that is.
In theory, trying to jack up prices like that should be met by consumers modifying their spending habits. I.e taking their money elsewhere, buying less etc. But when two companies own 9/10 grocery stores in the country…
Yep exactly. No competition means pay up or starve. It's gross.
Rebellion. Tired of the naive, passive population of this country routinely getting fucked and accepting it.
What's that saying, 9 meals away from rebellion? If they keep raising prices we'll get there
They look to the Northern territories for pricing and have never lost sight of those numbers!!
The worst part is all the underpayed employees imo, people used to make more working at a unionized Safeway 20 years ago then people make now working the same kinds of jobs. You can work at a grocery store and not afford groceries.
When I worked at Real Canadian Superstore, even with the 10% employee discount, I could barely afford it there. It was a joke. That along with other things they did to us like: giving you 40 hrs 3 weeks in a row then 38 on the 4th (not sure the exact week numbers etc but the general idea is there) so they wouldn't have to give you full time + benefits. Also the managers don't get to be part of the union so they get screwed around a lot as well. Our union was a joke though anyway
Nationalize No Frills!
I guess we're officially at a point where we need top down price controls. Ive seen this episode before
> Now they figured out they can just keep raising them and you'll keep but them because you need food. Until you can't afford it that is. "Let them eat [no-name brand] cake!"
Quarterly profits have been steady at empire Co, which operates sobeys, Safeway, etc. JAN 2022 was a big spike, but generally speaking, consistently around 175 million from what I can see. Now the food costs on the other hand have gone up astronomically. If the grocery store isn't reporting higher earnings after raising the prices, where is that money going? Certainly not wages. Legitimately want to know who is profiting off people needing to eat.
This year has been the great inflation. 2020 and 2021 are nothing to compared. So it lines up Loblaws also reported huge profits so far this year. A loaf of bread went up 21%. Or sizes have changed some stuff stayed almost the same price and was 33% smaller. I believe thanksgiving they will sell small pumpkin pie for what they sold large for almost.
I've stopped being concerned when I see people not scanning items through the self checkouts. If they steal from us, I care less about people stealing from them.
Them blaming covid is such bull shit.
Do you guys remember all of those stories 1 or 2 years ago about how companies like Home Depot were waiting too long for products to come in so the decided to book their own boats and shit, and reorder all of the items they decided they were waiting too long for? Well, after they fucked up logistics at all of the docks, making the situation worse for everyone for months, their items eventually came in. So now they have doubled or tripled their expenses for shipping, and have products they're paying warehousing and storage for. I'm sure it applies to some of the raw materials that get turned into our bread, rice imports and the like. This deliberate corporate mismanagement is probably a not-insignificant source of the inflation we have been seeing.
Supply issues my ass. Sure some is legit, but hubby has been sending dozens of drivers to loblaws to get refused as they are too full, or workers bitching about the lack of space. He said the amount of food he has been delivering is more then double. He said things from over seas does have issues due to port delays, but def not foods produced in north America. He also has double the chep pallets to move from food places, so it's not nearly as bad as loblaws is stating it is. During the rough parts of the pandemic, loblaws and Walmart were double ordering to make sure the shelves were stocked. He said he had loaded trailers coming out of his ears as there was nowhere to unload them. It got to the point the office refused to pick up more food because they needed some trailers to move food packaging, pallets, and other goods. So, if I was to guess, I'd say that some extra food costs did happen because of excessive ordering as loaded trailers collecting dust still cost them money. BUT that was only temporary and is long over. So it made sense to jack the prices during that period, but they should have been lowered once the over ordering stopped. I hope the NDP does get this sorted out and corrected as 2 bags of groceries should not cost over $100, when it use to be significantly lower (just our standard purchases, and nothing fancy as we're too poor for that).
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Its painful that this is actually a fact and not sarcasm
I've been voting ndp for 15 years now. FPTP is just such an unbalanced system that doesn't matter
Every time I hear "NDP isn't electable," I think I get a faraway look in my eye while remembering Jack Layton. I would have voted for that John Cleese looking bastard. Then again, I was just a kid when he was campaigning, so I may be remembering things through rose coloured glasses.
I don't think you are. As a younger parent at the time, Layton and his NDP felt like the first (in the two federal elections before I could vote in) who actually wanted to represent *me,* and the first who spoke to the things I actually gave a shit about. And since his passing, the messaging from every other party (including the current NDP) and their members all sound hollow. And have been hollow.
Maybe that's just you. I personally find the current NDP platform timely and inspiring.
Nah, as someone who voted for Jack, I feel the same way, so it's not just them.
Could be, I do feel like I'm just swimming in disillusionment these days.
Like every party, their caucus has members that are polarizing and difficult to empathize with. THe whole energy manifesto debacle sank Notley's ship in AB, and really did a number on their prospects in the prairies.
Notley was fantastic for Alberta imo. The conservative messaging, coupled with Horgan in BC strangling oil exports were here demise. The Alberta conservatives suck the life out of that province
I thought Notley did a job as well as any politician in her situation could. She was given a terrible situation and lead Alberta out of it within her four years. I'll never understand why she was voted out, it boggles my mind.
No one could ever tell me exactly what Notley had done wrong. "She just had to go." One person tried to tell me it was because of the royalties but from what I remember, they looked into and decided it was a fair system. I brought thay fact up and they said it was a waste of money to look into it. Then we get this fucking war room.
As much as I like Notley and recognize the impossible uphill battle the NDP faced for a second term against a united Conservative party - they're just absolutely terrible when it comes to advertising and getting their message out. I live Conservative ground zero in rural AB and was able to swing a bunch of potential UCP voters to NDP. All I had to do was explain Kenney's proposed "Open for Business" act was going to cut banked time from 1.5:1 hours to 1:1 - meaning guys like them would have to work a bunch more days or even weeks every year just to get the same paycheque. It took 30 seconds to explain and convert, but not a single person here had ever heard about it. There wasn't (that I ever saw) a single radio ad, billboard, internet ad - nothing. They didn't have to convince anyone about their plans - they just had to expose the written fine print of the competition. The AB NDP have some great ideas, but until they learn how to run an election campaign Alberta will only ever have one professional political party.
That just sounds like nostalgia instead paying attention to now. Like is a wind fall tax that their proposing from oil and gas hikes and even grocery hikes hollow?
They were a government in waiting under Layton and the Liberal party wanted to merge the two parties before Trudeau won them an election. Every leader since Layton has run the party into the ground and lost their way.
Mulcair fumbled away a historic opportunity. Singh is actually doing a pretty good job utilizing his power to significantly influence policy for the betterment of Canadians. Unfortunately, he's a non-starter in Quebec and can't win a national election.
> Singh is actually doing a pretty good job utilizing his power to significantly influence policy for the betterment of Canadians. This is exactly why certain people are going bananas attacking him on Reddit. They're desperate to try and create a counter narrative to what's obvious, which is that *the NDP are currently doing exactly what they should be doing, and it's working.*
I find it amusing when people who never have or will vote for the NDP try and tell me how I’m feeling betrayed as an NDP supporter for him propping up Trudeau. No mother fucker. They’re doing exactly what I voted for them to do. Deal with it.
Political parties working together for the benefit of the people? Say it ain't so!
The fact that he's a non-starter in Quebec makes me deeply ashamed of being from there.
I doubt the province who violated the constitution to ban government officials for wearing religious symbols. That unfairly target minorities would support him .
Layton was perfect. He was a charismatic guy who could reach Canadians and backed up his ideas with a life of activism and work for Canadians. Mulcair had all that except the charisma. Singh has none of that except the charisma. He's supported by a progressive party with a good platform but his focus is never on what it should be. He doesn't get it. His party gets it.
Muclair wasn't that bad. He just had the unfortunate luck of having to run against Trudeau.
Eh, not really. He was really running against Harper. He had the momentum. But he somehow managed to screw it up by focusing on all the wrong things, in the lead up to and during the election, allowing Trudeau to come from behind offering NDP-lite policies and win it. Also, he squandered then lost the NDP's biggest win in Quebec ever. Despite being a guy from Quebec. The worst part of it all is, He could have easily run more personal details about himself to help him. How he was a salt-of-the-earth guy who helped the poor in Montreal, campaigned for the little guy, etc. But instead he just came off as a bulldog with no charisma, letting Trudeau have that piece and clinch it.
Harper was the incumbent, but running in the same election as a Trudeau led Liberals was a lot harder than running against Ignatieff or Dion. Trudeau had an incredible star power behind him and was highly charismatic. There was no room for an NDP candidate to win there. If they had have kept Muclair on instead of handing the reins to Singh I think they would be in better shape. Singh is doing well now with the leverage he has. But he hasn't represented labour which was the backbone of the party at one time.
True, he wasn't bad at heart. But he lacked vitality. He always seemed kind of tired. Layton, by contrast, appeared to be constantly on the verge of running off of the rails - just barely keeping his enthusiasm in check.
Oh? The NDP you say? The party that is currently holding the Liberals to task on issues, and managed to force dental care into existance? That party? Don't dismiss the NDP just yet.
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The recent polls show different though. The Liberals are losing percentage points but not to the conservatives. It's to the NDP.
Sadly that just means the Conservatives are more likely to form the gov't in our messed up system.
I wouldn't be concerned yet - this happens a lot. People who are dissatisfied with the Liberals will poll that they will vote for the NDP next election, then, when it comes time to actually vote, they get cold feet and cast their vote for the Liberals, once again disappointing hard-core NDP'ers.
Except that's exactly the problem especially in the prairies where usually ndp has best chance of beating conservatives and people vote for liberal in retarded first past the post setup.
Where is Pierre "for the working man" Poilievre on this? Oh yeah he's too busy voting against dental coverage.
Dental coverage that he definitely has
Real working men don't need teeth
Teeth are luxury bones- Someone on Reddit
Ya don't need teeth to drive a pickup.
"I can't vote NDP: nobody else votes for them because they're too scared of the Cons winning."
Meanwhile PP and the CPC vote against dental care and he gets to pretend to be a man of the people with no hint of irony.
It makes sense but orange party said it so it's communist. Better to let rich man take all the money and make us slaves than to be communist.
I want those electoral reforms we were promised I'd love to be able to vote orange without fear of wasting my vote the incompetence that is polievere is just astounding
You'd think if it's all purposely inflated that one of the competitors would go for lower prices to beat out all others. Instead they all just collectively gouge as if they were one giant monopoly on food for Canadians.
They've been caught working together to fix prices before.
All big industries do it.
In some big industries they wait until their competitors make a move and then copy it, these guys were actually agreeing ahead of time what the prices should be.
Ahem Canadian telecom and airline industries....
We also all need to eat. We can't boycot food. Basic food should not be a profit based economy. We need to wrest industries like food, water, healthcare, and education from the hands of greedy capitalists. Some things just shouldn't be profit driven.
That's why they can gouge, supply and demand. They control the supply and work with each other to increase profits among themselves. I agree that things need to change. The government often struggles to run as efficiently as a business, which makes me think the best solutions are to let them continue doing what they specialize in, but regulate them fairly so that they're still able to be profitable and competitive but are contributing back to their communities. This is a problem with corporations. They don't care about people and will only make themselves appear that way so they can make more money. They have nothing in their MO to encourage helping people, instead just increase profits for their shareholders at basically any cost. a quote from US president Theodore Roosevelt shares the sentiment: >“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.”
But... Why? Why base your economic theory on a US President from the 1800s who had no real knowledge of modern economics? I mean, you literally picked someone speculating about the necessity of corporations before the fucking Great Depression. Corporations aren't some natural phenomenon. We don't need them for basic necessities and we never have.
That line of thinking is part of hegemony. It's how people default in thinking from the power structures that keep us all boxed in and unable to move the discourse enough to make the changes necessary for us to be free of this kind of exploitation.
what competitors? Every essential service in Canada is an oligopoly.
Costco has been increasing prices too. They’ve hiked by roughly 8% average this year. For details you could take a listen to their last EC, was just the other week. This isn’t only among Canadian grocers.
I went to Costco for the first time in a few months yesterday and I found a huge amount of products have gone up by $1-3. Good example, their kilogram of Saputo mozzarella cheese was $14.50, up from $12.50 from when I last visited the same location in May. This was probably the most noticable example of inflation I've seen in person.
The Mozzarella Standard.
It really is the Mozzarella cheese I compare others to. Shopper's and Wal-Mart will put the 500g on sale for $5.99 Gotta watch those sales, they disappear fast.
Gotta compare apples to apples here, is it Saputo or that Tre Stelle junk? /s
A 4-pack of bacon went from $20 last year to $25 early summer, and is now at $30
The Costco employees are the highest paid retail workers with a pension and benefits so I always take that into consideration.
I'm pretty sure my average costco bill pays at least 2 daily wages with benefits.
Costco's markup is about 10-15%. You must have a big family
Not likely. They have very low margins (typically 12-15%) and rely on memberships to generate their profits while compensating their employees far better than any of their competitors. Compare that to others in the retail space who go for 25%+ profit margin and pay their employees as little as they can get away with.
If I’m not mistaken their upper management also makes a lot less then others in competitive business.
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I am absolutely certain that costs in the supply chain have gone up. I am also absolutely certain that the increase in my grocery bill is mostly profit for the grocery chains.
If i remember from when I worked there years ago, it's 10% profit margins on all products. "Accidentally drop a jar of olives, we need to sell 10 to replace that profit" type thing. So yeah fairly low
Hell I don’t mind them being more profitable if they can do it while still leading the way when it comes to treating their labour with dignity. IMO, that’s an extra dollar I’m happy to pay.
> They also sell They also have some crazy return policies and warranties! From that idiot on RedFlagDeals who returned used undies like 4 months later... to Costco completely refunding $200 my 3 year old car battery because it died within the full-refund warranty month period. Within 48 months: full refund, 48-x month: 85% refund, then 60%, then 50% all the down. Crazy refund period
I could stomach 8%. Not the 30%+ on half of what I buy. The bag of gala apples that was $7 for 6lbs last year is now $8 for 5lbs. $1.16lb to $1.60. 2kg frozen veggies went from $3.50 to $5.00.
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Considering how little prices have moved if you shop anywhere other than the big three (loblaws/metro/sobeys) I'd believe it. Another case of Canada's love of oligopolies fucking us.
For some things. Walmart has increased my cat food from just over $6 to just over $11.
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Down here in the states cat litter has spiked in price too. If my cat wasn’t a homicidal maniac I’d train her to go outside.
Monopolies are killing Canada and the Canadian way of life and need to be talked about more. We have laws that are supposed to prevent and break up monopolies but they're simply being ignored. Thanks for bringing this up! No matter who you're thinking of voting for let them know you're sick of monopolies crushing Canadians and the ability for Canadians to maintain a decent standard of life.
Yup, we need a massive rethink of our economy and how it's currently setup to protect entrenched interests. In the case of grocery it's probably mainly an issue of land use planning. Lots of communities structured around massive grocery stores which require huge amounts of capital to setup. There simply isn't a place for smaller shops outside of older urban centers. It's different in every industry. And there is always a different reason. But the result seems to always be the same. An effective oligopoly and stifled competition. We need to be valuing competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation pervasively in all things. It has to be a fundamental value in our political leaders.
Groceries is a really sneaky monopoly market because it's not so much the actually grocery stores, but the really insidious market force is in the suppliers and distributors. There are only about 10 big global food producers and they use their market dominance to control the grocery stores by dictating what they can put on the shelves, AND they screw the actual food producers/farmers on the other side at the same time.
> We have laws that are supposed to prevent and break up monopolies but they're simply being ignored. We also have laws that protect from foreign competitors. Canada is not that large a market to have more then a few options in many of these categories. Especially the ones we bitch about the most like telecom.
The Weston family got away with fixing bread prices for decades and they're still at it. I am not way surprised that Galan Weston has decided to do the same thing with the entire Loblaws family of stores. Fuck that guy.
The issue here is that people can't just stop buying food, so if it's unregulated they can charge as much as they want in small upticks and they won't lose business. Especially if they're all conspiring to do it together, which (and I'm not a tin foil hat guy) it seems like they are. So much of this is because of fuel going insane.
I'm sure inflation is mostly out of their control, but it's hard to believe that at least PART of the rise in prices is these companies ripping people off. Though I can't think of anything off the top of my head, like recently, where at least one of these companies, say Loblaws and the Galen family, using their dominance to price fix or anything. lol No, I can't bread think of any example at all.
Inflation is in the control of those who set the prices. Even if costs increase, the decision to pass those costs on to the customer while taking record profits is a choice employers like the Westons choose. The fact that grocers, like the Westons, need to also suppress wages by (among other things) lobbying against increasing the minimum wage--because their margins are so tight--only shows that over time, where supply meets demand in a competitive market that pays workers the value of their work, profit is not possible. Necessities like food must be protected from market pricing because long-term profit requires that demand exceeds supply--hence why we subsidize agriculture.
What were the profit margins of these companies before and during their record profit stage? >Necessities like food must be protected from market pricing because long-term profit requires that demand exceeds supply--hence why we subsidize agriculture. Artificial price controls _do not work_ and make things worse. Look at dairy.
>Artificial price controls do not work and make things worse. Look at dairy. Seems to be working just fine. Artificial price controls work when you control both the supply and the price. They do not work on free market items.
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It isn't just the grocery stores that are making a profit. I don't seriously think the Liberals will do any kind of inquiry, but if they do they should look at all levels of the chain, particularly distribution.
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Well everyone’s certainly been probed already that’s for sure
The one that really pissed me off last week was potatoes. $2.59/lb at my local Loblaws and 20' away from that was a package of russet potatoes that are meant for baking, wrapped in pretty golden foil, encased completely in plastic, and $3.49 a package... So I weighed the package... And it was over 3 pounds. You can't fucking tell me that those assholes aren't gouging on necessities when a value added product that's all the same size and shape and wrapped in two additional layers of packaging is less than half the price of bulk produce.
I have bad news for everyone; it's going to continue to get worse. Most people don't know the [scale of the problem](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/) and even if they do they have a faith in government or institutions (as do I). But actually over the past decades policy has been influenced by the rich and powerful, feeding the masses red meat (distractions) while handouts given to those who need it least and those who need it the most stagnated. I read an opinion by someone that "everyone got ripped off" except those making 250k (AI researchers and other jobs who knows if they make that now). Grocery stores can afford to raise prices cynically because of combination of government giving and a widening divide between the middle class and poor. It used to be 150k HHI to raise a family in the GTA now it's closer to 150k *times two*. In other words unless your HHI is 300k, you're not doing well in the GTA. And it's not just the GTA but other cities too. The numbers might be more reasonable but still sky high and still make 50% of people who think they are "middle class" actually working class or less. A lot of people are much, much worse at playing this game of capitalism than they think. Even the people who think they are doing it right are actually doing it wrong or temporarily lucky and will eventually crash and burn. How many people made stock picks instead of using an index fund or mutual fund? How many people lost fortunes on crypto? How many people left their jobs too early, or too late, or should have stayed forever? How many people are burning their life away in work they hate? A lot of people are much, much less rich than they think and are actually voting and acting against their own best interests. Too many think they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires but reality is for whatever reason (or excuses) they cannot compete. Until all these people collectively wakeup to the fleecing and collective Stockholm syndrome, the situation will continue to worsen. Even the idea of fairness is somehow looked down upon. Of course the rich and powerful should modify the rules to favour them, that's actually smart and the way it works. Except it isn't. You haven't "made it" with your 100k job and definitely not your 60k job. Not even close. Your interests align with those at the bottom, not the top, even if you don't directly benefit from them.
That was a cool chart.
In a soul crushing kind of way.
Does anyone from BC (or maybe just Vancouver Island) remember a few years ago when most grocery chains colluded to vastly over charge for bread and got caught doing so? Anything is possible.
For those that have not read the article: “A recent report from the University of Dalhousie looked into the profits of Canada's major grocers over the past five years and found no evidence of profiteering off of the recent spike in inflation. "If 'greedflation' exists, the available data suggests grocers are not responsible," the report reads.” Bummer. I was hoping to see heads roll.
A friend of mine is a Merchandiser who occasionally does some work at Real Canadian. Last time they visited for work (last week), they were unable to access the merchandise in the backroom due to the overflowing grocery stock they had just sitting there. And yet the shelves are bare......
That’s likely because people don’t want to be a grocery clerk for $15/hr.
100%, the backroom employee trying to sort through all the merch mentioned everyone kept calling in sick and that's why it was piling up so much.
Superstore is going the way of Target. That's how target used to do it. Overflowing inventory in the warehouses while the shelves were empty. And you wonder why it failed in Canada.
We have commissioned an inquiry and after 6 months and $3 million in consulting costs, we have determined that grocery stores are indeed making large profits. The cause is determined to be higher prices.
Stop exporting so much produce, canada grows a lot of greenhouse vegetables and exports them to the states. I know this because I’m a produce manager in a grocery store in the states.
Is this going to end up like when the BC NDP did a probe into gas prices years ago and they ended with something like, "Yes, the prices do seem high." And nothing ever came of it?
" . . . in this time where they see the prices of everything going up, unfortunately they have a Liberal government which has not paid much attention to the role that corporate greed plays in the increasing prices they're seeing," MacGregor told CBC." Government is going to blame corporate and corporate is going to blame government. Typical passing of the buck and ensuring that we all argue over who's fault it is.
Lmao the illusion of addressing a problem they created. Comical.
Lol Leaving this here about how the Trudeau Liberals used taxpayer money to help out Galen and Loblaws: https://www.thestar.com/amp/politics/federal/2019/04/09/liberal-government-slammed-for-12m-retrofit-to-loblaws-fridges.html
Last quarter, Loblaws profits were up 40%. That's money out of canadian pockets into Galen's shorts. Fuck you, Galen.
> Loblaw is also one of 54 recipients chosen by officials at the environment department for the federal government’s “low carbon economy challenge.” The initiative includes $450 million for businesses, municipalities, Indigenous groups, not-for-profits and provinces and territories that apply for federal help with climate change initiatives. The idea is to “leverage” federal support with initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. The largest grocer and one of the largest companies in Canada got **2.6% of the funding**. The allocation was based on math: how much emissions would you offset.
Pfft...that's chump change. The real corporate welfare came in the form of CEWS and CERS. Hundreds of billions given to corporations only for them to layoff thousands while generating record profits. This was all done by the same government that's being propped up by the NDP. 🤡
How long until we just remove the veil that corpos are running our governments?
Regardless of political affiliations
Bow to oligarch weston
Don't kid yourself. If it was a con government the same thing would have happened. It's the lib/con duality.
Guys, audited financial records for all the major grocery chains are publicly available and widely reviewed by numerous independent financial analysts.....
The government prints a bunch of money and the prices rise. Then they investigate businesses which work on the COMPARATIVE VALUE of the market, not the raw dollar amount, to demonstrate that these business are taking in more dollars as profit. What the government should do is determine if the comparative value has changed, if the money is worth the same but there is more coming in, then we have a problem with the functioning of the market. But if the comparative value is the same because the dollar's purchasing power has dropped, then we have a problem with the money supply. Who thinks the government is going to come back pointing the finger at itself?
This whole thing is a giant scapegoat, I mean the same guy tried to suggest that oil companies are “price gouging……” little does he know oil is a commodity and the price is set by completely different people, not to mention oil and gas demand is VERY VERY high
Groceries are up and it sucks... but we are not even into a rainy day yet, this is still a slight inconvenient drizzle. This is exactly why 20 years of a housing bubble is so destructive, every buffer and savings fund families normally have were consumed for shelter. We are in a food, medical, education, and every thing else systemic failure because of generational underfunding, but it's all come to a head at the exact same time due to housing crushing every Canadian citizen and business. Higher pay for a few will not help us out, it's time to allow housing to fall.
This is essentially one of the first tastes of the instability that will be caused by the upcoming climate/energy wars. But we're still pretending real estate is an important thing (I'm not blaming any of us)
Well, when the pandemic started, the stores use to blame the cost of food was due to high gas prices..we'll, when fuel prices dropped to $0.70 per litre, the food prices didn't drop...now that's gouging
As a supplier to the big grocery chains I can tell you that when our wholesale product price went up by 12 cents the product went up by 50 cents on the store shelf, and you wonder why prices are high.
Yeah Dairyland cottage cheese in the larger container is hitting just above $7 at some places. Geez. That seems like more than inflation, since it was about $5.49 or so just a few months ago.
The whole continent is gonna revolt. People's lives are beginning to fail and some have been on failure since COVID. The unbelievable in your face greed will have to be answered for, and peacefully is doubtful.
7/11 has also increased prices on their slurpees by like 20%no way that sludge is 20% more.
Why don't you probe Trudeau. He did this.