And where else are we going to go? This country is just three monopolies in a trench coat masquerading as a fair and competitive market. We don’t have any choice. Galen knows this.
From Loblaw’s website:
We serve local communities with stores from coast to coast. Our family includes: Atlantic SuperstoreTM, Dominion®, Loblaws®, Maxi®, No Frills®, Provigo Le Marché®, Valu-MartTM, Real Canadian Superstore®, Wholesale ClubTM, Your Independent GrocerTM and ZehrsTM.
From Shopper’s Drug Mart website:
2014
Loblaw Companies Limited acquires Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation for $12.4 billion in cash and stock, bringing together two iconic Canadian brands
A co-op. You all pitch in and buy bulk straight from the farm and then distribute it without a markup. Obviously there are distribution costs as well which get divided by the number of participants in the “group buy”
Thankfully out in BC we have Asian and Indian francise grocery stores. Their prices are way less than Loblaws/Superstore. It means all oil, flour, rice, lentils, veg groceries, sauces, potatoes, dairy, etc are one trip at an Indian grocery, then other items like deoderant, water filter, etc are done at walmart.
Potatoes at Indian grocer $2.99-$3.99 same bag at SuperStore $8.99
4 green peppers at indian grocer, $3.xx , and SuperStore wanted $10.99
Dealing in Volume, SuperStore should be less
Your Independent Grocer
At least they have a sense of humour
I must have missed this on Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog
Our Albertson’s (including most Safeway brands) in my region want to merge with the Kroger brand stores. They say it’ll be good for customers. 🙄
Loblaw should have restricted their business to Bob Loblow’s Law Blog.
I remember when dairies had convenience stores and they’d sort of set the price for dairy products everywhere. No one is paying a 50+% markup when they can readily get it for half the grocery price. Now most are 7/11’s and dairy is not big on their sales list
I hear ham flipping is even more lucrative.
This year I invested in pumpkins. They’ve been going up the whole month of October, and I’ve got a feeling they’re going to peak right around January and BANG! That’s when I’ll cash in!
I don’t get why loblaws is the only one named all the time. Hell Safeway and Saveon have similar or higher prices. Why do they get a free pass?
Loblaws operates their primary banner stores in all the most populous areas of Canada, and they operate grocery stores under some sort of banner in every province and territory.
Safeway is American and only operates in Western Canada, Save-On-Foods is also in Western Canada only. Both are much smaller than Loblaws.
So basically, scale & name recognition. I know people hate the “GTA is the centre of the universe” thing as well, but Loblaws is the “expensive” grocery store in southern Ontario, which contains our national capitol and the capitol of our biggest province, which is also the HQ of all of our national newspapers and public TV station. So it will get special legislative & media attention too.
Safeway Canada is owned by Sobeys along with many other brands like Freshco.
Really almost all Canadian groceries stores are owned by Loblaws, Jim Pattinson group or Sobeys. Again not sure why they get off the hook.
3 way monopoly is the Canadian way.
Where do you shop if not at Loblaws? Anything not a subsidiary of the above three?
Not surprised. Butter is like $8 now !
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Sometimes butter goes on sale for $4. It’s the same thing they sell later for $8. Of course they’re making +50% profit on that.
I just try to stock up when it’s low, and not get screwed with the normal price. It used to be like $1 more. Now it’s double. Make your own food people!
Make your own food people!
Yall call this civilization?
The crazy part is the butter was listed as over 50% profit while also being priced under $5, I have not seen prices that low in years.
Isn’t that the chain that’s owned by some right-wing shithead who was under investigation for something shady?
What’s depressingly unsurprising about those stats is that the shittier the food, the lower the GP%.
Oh sorry, you want real cheese and not extruded plastic masquerading as a dairy-like substance? Better pay more. Want something more sustainable, like oat milk? 55% markup.
And people wonder why the poor are less healthy. Fuck these fucking ghouls.
The oat milk infuriates me. I make it at home and it costs next to nothing almond milk I understand but oat milk should be much cheaper
Most Canadian oat/almond/soy milk substitutes are filled with carrageenan, xantham gum and guar gum. The ones that aren’t, like Earth’s Own Naked Oat are double the price of the others, exceeding the price of milk.
I’ve discovered that I can buy local, unhomogenized milk in my city that comes in glass instead of plastic or PFAS lined cardboard. The price is $5/bottle but the taste is miles above the cartel milk or the substitutes, and oddly doesn’t trigger my mild lactose intolerance either.
A neighboring town has a creamery and their milk is famous around here, it’s so delicious and wholesome. Plus you can turn the glasses back in for a $2 rebate on the next bottle
Do you have instructions on how to make it?
That oat milk is more expensive than cow milk always seemed like “virtue pricing”. An acre of oats makes more oat milk than an acre of dairy cow feed makes cow milk.
More like “novelty pricing” IMO. Pay a premium to drink the exotic milk of the day.
Oat milk is just oatmeal in disguise, it’s as cheap as they come. The sad thing is that as overpriced as it is, as fake milks go, it’s pretty much the best! My ex drinks it because she’s lactose intolerant, and unlike almond or soy it’s actually palatable IMO.
Real Asian style fresh soy milk is excellent btw because it doesn’t pretend to be cow milk. It’s more like a hot creamy bean soup. Makes a great breakfast, if you happen to be in Taiwan
Thanks!
Is it good when you make it at home? I drink oat or Next Milk generally, and like it a lot, but if I could just milk my own oats…
Do you use this recipe?
Yes, I make a batch for myself once a week. You just gotta follow the process and it takes like 5 minutes.
Nice, thanks
extruded plastic masquerading as a dairy-like substance
I assume that you’re referring to Kraft singles, or “American” cheese: It’s just cheese, dude; mixed with a chemical (sodium citrate) to help it bind to water. The FDA refuses to allow it to be called cheese, due to the percentages involved (it’s literally mostly water). Regardless, no plastic after you take the wrapper off.
The Montreal-based chemist/YouTuber NileBlue made American cheese recently in a video.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
Fair enough. Took me a while to convince my buddies otherwise (judge me all you want, American makes great grilled cheese)
As a connoisseur, if you can call it that, of St Louis-style Provel, I concur.
Get these crooks under control; history repeats and we are long overdue a revolution.
Galen Weston will be the first when people finally snap
And yet, he’s only a symptom.
Much like the single pimple signifying the onset of acne he may not be the problem but it’s still extremely satisfying to pop.
No, he, and people like him, are the cause.
Yes, they’re part of the system. But it’s a system that they run, grow and benefit from.
Shouldn’t spare him just cause he’s a symptom
I can’t even begin to imagine the price gouging* going on in the USA.
Remember, these criminals always claim that they are working off “slim” margins and can’t possibly price food reasonably.
Looking at the rest of the list, and their record profits, it makes me wonder who in the government is on the Loblaws payroll.
Mr. Weston, are the slim margins in the room with us right now? 😆
Most of the people in any position to actually do something about it, including regulators.
Everybody buy No Name orange juice and maybe we can bankrupt them. Unless I’m reading it wrong.
What? No name products are from what I understand excess product made by the branded companies for certain grocery chains.
So the problem here with loblaws isn’t that the manufacturers have increased their prices by 54% it’s loblaws who have brought the product in to sell and marked up the price.
For a quick shitty example. Let’s say you’re selling OJ and you want $1 per bottle. Loblaws says okay we’ll sell it in our stores. Now loblaws has your OJ on the shelf but it’s priced at $1.54.
Therefore if the store is already shameless and marking up products this much you can bet that these no name products would probably have equal to or potentially more profit in it.
Maybe we can socialize grocery stores, it will help farmers bring their crop to market
There is such a thing as CO-OPs.
I have a good thing going right now.
I have a csa to get seasonal stuff, a local farmers market for meat and berries. I hit up a locally owned Vietnamese grocery store for imported stuff and then costco once a quarter or so for bulk stuff and a little bit of processed stuff. Cut my food costs by more than half. Berries are 5 for 2.5 pints (5 of of those containers you get at the grocery store), I got kolbasa today, 10$ for about 2ft worth. Amazing quality too.
In some places, I feel like seizing all of the sobeys, metros, loblaws will expand their reach
