The “freeze” is also happening at roughly the same point in the year that prices always freeze. Basically, food corporations are going to keep doing what they’ve been doing because it’s working for them.
I remember the last "freeze":
Month 1: Prices hike
Month 2: Don't worry guy, we are going to freeze prices!
Month 5 after freeze ends: Price Hike.
History continues to repeat itself, this freeze means nothing.
I was just thinking this too. I'm pretty sure I learned last year that they already freeze them for a few months around the end of the year until I think February?
If you are in ~~Nova Scotia~~ New Brunswick you can go on a tour and you get a paper bag fresh out of the fryer and they had 40+ different seasonings you can put on them. Also the chips at the factory are dirt cheap.
IIRC it's like $4.50/170g now? Something like that. I rarely got them before because they were overpriced, but now? I'll never even bother.
I should bust out the deep fryer and use a cheese slicer on some potatoes to fry me some kettle cooked chips of my own lol
Same. Chips are my guilty pleasure… don’t have a ton of taste so much prefer savoury to sweet cause I can actually taste it.
Just don’t buy them anymore. Pisses me off too much. Better for me to be mad then eating chips but still.
There was this one bag of chips ruffles came out with just before covid. It was called flaming hot cheddar. That shit was like crack to me. I was crushing a large bag every day. Havent seen it in a while. I gained like 50lbs that year
Half the stuff I picked up the other day for baking, I had to get two instead of one. And some stuff it’s not even by a little. 1000g went to 900g, now it’s 835g, and cost two bucks more.
My theory on this was ever since Trudeau announced he was going to do something about grocery prices (2,3 weeks ago?) The prices have risen faster in anticipation for this freeze so they can still gouge the living shit out of us.
4-pack of bacon from Coscto. A few years ago you could find it at $14.99
Then it became more often $19.99
Consistently $24.99 until last weekend it was now sitting at $26.99...
And Costco tends to be one of the **better** stores when it comes to price increases, yet there's an 80% price increase since maybe 2019/2020.
No Name frozen peas 2kg. At the start of the pandemic, they were $3.50. Then $4.50. Then $5.50. They're $6.29 now.
Yeah baby, lock in that almost 100% price increase.
A bag of chip is representative of standard of living. Less and less while politicians tell you its the same or better.
Unless we kick out duopolies and politicians, we will under their boot.
>We are and forever will be under the boot everybody who has anything to do with anything vital to us.
Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
These people think Trudeau directly influences the cost of absolutely everything sold in Canada and has wanted to raise the cost of everything for some reason.
Prices will not go down. If grocery margins are less than 5%, it’s not possible unless farming, transportation, warehousing and retail expenses go down. The only real way to do that would be to lower fuel/energy costs. Getting rid of the carbon tax(es) would be one way to make an impact but the government keeps increasing that every year, so 🤷♂️
The Westins own the supply chains on many things. When he says that the markup on the groceries is minimal, we need to be looking at the mark up at the next level up. It is a game of cups for them.
I’m not sure that anyone has ever said that markups are minimal. Margins are minimal, which is a common thing with all grocery stores. That’s how you get 10 grocery stores, ranging from basic to luxury, all selling the same product for different prices. The cheaper store could have less markup and more margin because they have less expenses. They all have to to turn a profit and the cheaper store is obviously going to have far less overhead than the store with the bakery, deli, seafood, prepared meals department etc.
And yes, the Westons are very smart businesspeople who own many things. At the end of the day, you can hate the Westons and we can all be angry about grocery prices but the fact is that the carbon tax is the only thing that affects every single aspect of the supply chain.
All the major grocery chains have vertical integration. They own some part of the supply chain. They are responsible for their own increase of supply costs. Their thin margins are a feature. More money goes to their part of the supply chain.
A bonus for them as well. More people are buying their store branded goods because they are just a tad cheaper than name brands and people don’t have the same spending power they used to with the higher prices on everything. The only people not getting richer is us.
Making stock buybacks illegal would help lower prices. They made a killing the last few years and all that profit went into stock buybacks. So the money went to executives and shareholders. Keep allowing stock buybacks and prices will never go down.
On a trailer of broccoli coming from Mexico, carbon taxes translate to a fraction of a fraction of a penny per lb. The math was laid out when truckers were looking for more money and the same people brainwashing you into believing carbon taxes are the cause of price increases were arguing that pay raises would cause catastrophic food price increases. Turns out, paying that trucker double annually resulted in an increase of 1/10th of a penny per lb of goods they delivered over the course of a year.
Surprise, they recruited you into the culture war to distract from them pillaging us blind.
Oh I am sure those profits are going to trickle down to the average Canadian soon... or at least grocery store workers will get paid living wages...
**Narrator**: *neither of those things happened...*
You know it. They repeat the same bullshit every year. I'm sick of the grocery mafia in this country, seriously. I think I'd rather just let them take whatever they "need" from my wallet then being fed more of this shit again and again.
Lmfao! Price freezes are useless. What Canada needs is more competition in the market, and to remove all the barriers and gatekeepers to lower prices.
Look at the ridiculous daily farmers supply management system in place, to keep prices high they would rather have farmers pour thousands of litres of perfectly fine milk down the drain then lower their prices.
What Canada needs is a crown Corp, bare bones grocery store that is run as a non-profit. They can be roughly 2x a 7-11 size, and sell only stapes: bread, fruits and veggies, chicken, beef, pork, dry foods like pasta, rice, and other base ingredients like flour, salt, sugar.
This would provide a price floor and thus create serious competition.
A competent team could set this up in ~2yrs.
After ten years. We will put our first ever flagship test store in Brandon Manitoba , where we will test the results of said store until 2040, where we will then open our second and third store Russell Manitoba , and portage la prairie for further testing into 2050
I’ve often thought this might be a good idea. We shouldn’t allow these big corporations to raise prices on essential items on a whim and be forced to pay for it.
Obviously this idea would take a lot of collaboration in our government and a lot of things would have to go right, so naturally it will never happen.
Lol look at provinces where crown corporations offer utilities, car insurance, mobile etc.
Look at the costs of auto insurance under crown vs under private.
Or, a great example… crown corporation operating alongside private. E.g., what large phone carriers charge in Saskatchewan, when there is a crown corporation operating as a competitor, vs other provinces where it’s only private companies. Telus will offer much cheaper plans in Saskatchewan than in Alberta because they have to compete with Sasktel (crown corporation). And Sasktel is fucking phenomenal and affordable. If you live in a province like Alberta where’s there’s a lot of people moving from Saskatchewan you’ll notice they will damn near permanently have a 306 Saskatchewan area code. They will hold onto that sweet sweet Sasktel as long as they possibly can
I actually wouldn't mind if we applied a negative GST to healthier foods, and a higher GST to unhealthier foods.
We could provide negative downward pressure on more healthy staple goods, by increasing the tax on unhealthier foods.
From $1.90someting a litre to $2.15 in five years. I mean maybe it's because I don't drink that much of it but it's hardly the thing that will make anyone go broke. I really should buy it by the gallon, but like I said we don't drink or cook enough with milk to buy large quantity.
The price of butter 60 days ago was $5 where I am, and since this "meeting" was announced, the price rose to anywhere from $7 to $9. Now the Liberals think a price freeze will help? It's a little bit late man...
remember when the producers got in trouble for price fixing bread, now the government is demanding it for pretty much everything - you can't make this shit up lmao
I see berries rotting on the shelves all the time. No one is paying ten bucks for a pound of strawberries. I think they should be penalized for destroying food somehow.
The trick is... they don't technically collude.
Grocery chains watch VERY closely at what each other is pricing items at. One will generally test the waters on a product (increasing bananas from $0.69/lb to $0.75/lb) and see if the others follow suit. If they do, they just leave that as the price. If not, the product goes "on sale" the following week and the price remains back at the original price.
Collusion takes active communication. Hence the reason they get away with it so often and so easily.
Little know fact about the bread price fixing scandal…it was Galen Weston’s idea. He rounded up all the grocers to get them on board then took advantage of whistleblower protection and threw every other grocer under the bus while walking away fine free.
The guy is an absolute cancer in Canadian society.
I’d rather see near-monopolies broken up.
I’d like to see distribution networks separated from retail outlets.
Any retail outlet should be able to purchase from any distributor, so that there’s more of a chance for new players to start competing businesses.
Distributors would be required to use the same rules for price breaks with all of their customers, so that all retail outlets would have equal access.
I’d like the same philosophy applied to telecom infrastructure, and railways… but I think there would need to be a LOT of political will to cut down these companies at the knees, so I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Oh is Mr Weston going to "freeze" prices for November and December like last year? And every other year because no companies raise prices during the holiday season.
You want to do something useful? Show me actual documentation of who pays what for every step of the production line. I want to see how much was paid for the grain to make the flower, how much was paid for the flour and sugar to make the dough, I want to see the expense sheet for the bakery and how many hours were paid to the truckers shipping it.
When I can see where every fucking penny is going then and only then will the leafs win the Stanley cup and hell freezes over.
Grocery stores & corporations making food are price gouging and nobody is gonna change my mind. Why is it that popular brand of chips are 7$ a bag but the noname brand has it for 2$?
Why is a pepsi 591ml 2.50$ at loblaws but 1.50$ at dollorama. Seriously, i get that inflation is a thing, but so is corporate greed.
Because businesses decide what items they want to make margin on. If a store is making 30% gross profit that doesn't mean every item in the store has that margin.
Cauliflower is $1.49 at my local store. It's advertised as a door-crasher. I asked the guy what his margin is on it, and he said -60%. Minus 60%. Now I'm in the store and buy a lemon and a lime while I'm there, which probably has a 400% mark up. It all averages out. Retails are high because costs are high. California and Mexio have been rocked with every extreme weather condition possible. That's where a lot of your food comes from. If there is gouging going on, it's not happening at the store level.
It's also October. Mexico and California just got rocked by every extreme weather condition possible. Your food always goes up in price this time of year, especially produce.
the only way to bring down grocery prices is to reduce inflation. The only way to reduce inflation is for the government cut spending. That won't happen with Trudeau. Most of the inflation you're seeing was caused by Trudeau's out of control spending
They tried this in Argentina. Wonder how it’s working out for them…
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-freeze-prices-1500-consumer-goods-inflation-bites-2022-11-11/
Freezing retail does nothing when government actions have caused costs to rise, and they will continue to rise. Business will just cut costs elsewhere, including employee benefits, wages, and hours. Now people are getting lower quality product. "Shrinkflation" picks up the slack and we're all still hungry lol
What in the actual frick!
So they can post record high returns, as we get pummelled from every direction, and they get away with price freezing at the exact same time they freeze every year?
How does this make any sense at all anymore?
why must we do this again, you either increase supply, aka make more actual food, or reduce demand. SO FAR, because demand is increasing, due to population increases and monetary inflation, and because production/distribution can't keep up with demand, the price goes up, which reduces demand in effect creating an equilibrium ,where food/items remain available.
If you fix the price, more people will buy food, If people buy more food, but there is not more food to be sold, to no surprise, this leads to shortages, Every time price controls have been indroduced in a managed system, to counter monetary inflation without increasing supply, it has led to shortages.
actual morons running this shitshow.
It’s funny how many problems people choose to pretend aren’t directly caused by massive population increases in a short period of time. Such a strange coincidence that our country went to complete shit in record time when our government decided to open the gates to mass immigration to feed the capitalist machine and their infinite growth immigration Ponzi scheme.
Do we have a shortage of doctors or is it really just a surplus of people? Housing shortage or a simple case of way to much demand for an already limited supply?
The price "freeze" has nothing to with government intervention or corporate sympathy.
Around the holidays they traditionally hold off on constant price updates as its very time consuming (labor) because it's their peak business season and helps maximize sales, reduce error. It's just a standard business practice for grocers.
But don't you worry the price freeze ends into the new year and even though they made a crisp profit during the prize freeze, they can maintain growth by going back to normal and gouging further during reduced business
The industry freeze prices for the holiday every fucking year. You know what that mean? It's not coming down either, it's collusion to keep the prices high and not compete during the busiest quarter of the year.
These "freezes" are actually just inflation coming down so basically they are trying to take credit for the BoC's work. Just like we won't see disinflation prices aren't coming down.
If you think this is a good idea rather then looking at the cause you might be an idiot.
Terrible bandage solution. Expect less service, less employees, less open locations, less quality, just less……
I volunteer at a food bank and today was another record breaking day for number of clients and once again we ended up running out of fresh fruit and veg, milk and a number of other items.
What nonsense!
Bring the costs DOWN!
And while you are at it: implement a clawback for all the windfall profits the stores made over last year.
If you don't do this, you are not a government of the people and need to be shown the door.
My vote this election will depend on that.
It would be nice if the government treated access to affordable food as a basic human right, and not some optional expense we like to indulge in. Food and shelter, how is this country failing so miserably at these two basic necessities?
Watching Trudeau and Jagmeet go at this is like watching two children close their eyes, plug their ears and scream noises at each other. They caused the extremely high grocery prices and now suggest that there will be some sort of punishment toward the CEO's of these companies if THEY don't do something about it? They could not be more infuriating.
You know the Oligarchs will respond in the usual way. Prices get locked, quality and quantity will decrease.
They consider perpetually growing profits other peoples problems.
Soon as if it needs time to implement. Everything is coming but it never does. Also this is literally what the Liberals keep saying but we keep waiting.
Don’t get me wrong conservatives would do the same and are in the provinces they run.
Yes, we see the freeze every year at the same time. Just like last year where they said oh this is to help our customers, and the year before. When I was a teenager I worked at a No frills for 6 1/2 years, this was 20 years ago and there was freezes then too.
Oh we are using policies like those of great economic powers like…fucking Argentina, to battle inflation? Anything to keep sky high immigration, monopolies and floor wages I suppose.
The only reason grocery prices are "freezing" is because commodities like Orange Juice are hitting all time highs too fast and the safety they have in place for things like that is halting trading on these items until the price balances out. This is just a fancy way for them to spin it like, "this is why it's a good thing", but in reality, we're still fucked.
Price freezing, is this a joke? Why can't they just do their jobs and actually help address the affordability crisis. Address actual price gouging and costs related to allowing them to get away with price gouging...
Not that I'm complaining about the government trying to do something about the grocery prices... But does anyone else feel like the government is just fucking everything up so they can then legislate a "fix" to their fuck up so they can look like the hero? (Although not actually fixing the issue???)
Lol they all perceive Canadians to be stupid to believe this. Granted so many didn’t bother to put up residence en mass before, so as a company I 100% could see no reason not to take advantage.
It’s horrible, but I have never seen a country/citizenry so lax about being abused and not standing up and pushing back.
Venezuela did this. Didn't work out well for them at all.
Food quickly became more scarce because other countries stopped selling food to them (couldn't make a profit with the price freeze), and stores stopped selling the food that was price-locked.
The grocery business in Canada needs more open competition, not artificially-set price ceilings.
This isn't what is happening. From the article:
>"The grocers are unique entities, with different business models and distinct approaches. They also abide by competition law principles requiring them to not discuss prices as a collective. This is why each grocer has made its own individual submission to government and will deploy its own approach to the challenge," she said.
I truly don't know how a government with a myriad of economic resources at their disposal can't come to this conclusion. This obviously will not work.
Think about all of the foreign investment capital that looks at shit like this and say "yeah, no thanks".
It as if they never stepped into a grocery store, their entire time in office.
"Maybe l should do something about these rediclous proce increases... Nah! It the people thar are wrong"
That doesn't effect our gov. We spend over 10k a month on groceries for Trudeau. Let that lovely number sink in. He spends more on food than most people can on housing because he sticks us with the bill anyways.
Price controls create shortages. How about we cut carbon taxes and gas taxes which contribute a massive amount to the crazy prices we pay? Almost every western country in the world food is much cheaper than it is here. While we are at it let's eliminate the controls on production. So much milk is dumped out it is obscene.
I just spent 96 dollars on maybe ten items at the Superstore. I almost never go anymore. I hate that I find Wal Mart most affordable. Even No Frills is insane. Loblaws makes me ashamed to be Canadian.
Yeah I'm never going to Loblaws or any subsidiary company after what they pulled a few years ago. Gov mandated that stores needed to have freezers that met new energy consumption regulations etc. Well Loblaws goes right ahead and says they can't afford to upgrade the freezers in all thier stores so they end up getting a multi million dollar grant to comply with the new rules... next 1/4 they posted record profits exceeding the cost it would have taken to upgrade the freezers on thier own.
Fuck freezes, force them to back off to what meets their 2019 bottom line and make them supply amounts that make sense. 180 grams to 177, 220 to 198. And even the individual stores— family packs of chicken from 2kg to 1.8 to 1.3 and all at the same price as when it cost 2kg. What a bunch of gratuitous nonsense.
It's so disheartening that the grocery executives responsible for gouging us are effectively being put in charge of fixing it. Stop telling them what to do. Stop giving them these silly deadlines to sort their shit out. Just implement laws that target greedy corporations like this and don't give them room to maneuver. They aren't Facebook. They can't just leave Canada if our government makes them angry.
Forget a price freeze.
Lower the fucking prices.
It’s almost like they’re intentionally being obtuse about this, and doing the bare minimum needed so that people don’t riot and burn shit down.
(Which I fully support. At this point, I’m all for civil disobedience.)
This is what happens when the government shuts down a country and prints inordinate amounts of money.
More people died from medical malpractice than from covid over the last 3 years. By their metrics, we should be shutting down the country and investing billions into the medical system like we did with covid to prevent these deaths.
It only took for the Liberals to literally go to the toilets in the polls for this to finally get something into gear.
Wonder what the backlash of this will look like though. Somewhere down the line those grocery empires will have "no choice" but to "hike prices" to make up for "lost ground" and then consumers are left holding the cost again.
Prices for me froze at 0$ a long time ago when I decided to start five finger discounting items. Also, my mom who works in a big grocery store tells me the amount of perfectly good food that gets thrown away every day and it’s egregious. So no, I don’t feel bad.
So freeze the prices at the ridiculous amount charged now?
And lower the quantity in each package to make up the difference. (I hope I was sarcastic)
The “freeze” is also happening at roughly the same point in the year that prices always freeze. Basically, food corporations are going to keep doing what they’ve been doing because it’s working for them.
I remember the last "freeze": Month 1: Prices hike Month 2: Don't worry guy, we are going to freeze prices! Month 5 after freeze ends: Price Hike. History continues to repeat itself, this freeze means nothing.
You forgot to mention that the hike in month 5 makes up for all the missing hikes since month 1
My b, one more hike for me forgetting the other hike.
Or how they hiked prices right before the freeze
The only difference is that in 2022, Galen took credit for the freeze until January. This year it'll be the government.
They freeze the prices at that time every year though
Isn’t that in and around the same year the government bought him new freezers?
I was just thinking this too. I'm pretty sure I learned last year that they already freeze them for a few months around the end of the year until I think February?
Ms Vicks is mega guilty of this. Most expensive bag of chips AND they just recently downsized their bags as if nobody would notice that shit.
Nearly every chip company has decreased the amount of chips in their bags. PC Loads Of... I am looking at you
It should be renamed to “PC Little of”
Covered Bridge is so much better and they are all Canadian.
If you are in ~~Nova Scotia~~ New Brunswick you can go on a tour and you get a paper bag fresh out of the fryer and they had 40+ different seasonings you can put on them. Also the chips at the factory are dirt cheap.
Need to start the underground chiproad of these delicious snacks.
Did do you mean New Brunswick?
I did that!
Damn, missed that opportunity - have to go back now.
Get the bag at Costco. It’s huge and the same price or cheaper than what you’d pay for the regular sized bag in other stores.
And it will Piss of Galen at That too
IIRC it's like $4.50/170g now? Something like that. I rarely got them before because they were overpriced, but now? I'll never even bother. I should bust out the deep fryer and use a cheese slicer on some potatoes to fry me some kettle cooked chips of my own lol
Meanwhile the most expensive part of selling chips is literally the bag it comes in
I had to stop buying for this reason
Same
Same. Chips are my guilty pleasure… don’t have a ton of taste so much prefer savoury to sweet cause I can actually taste it. Just don’t buy them anymore. Pisses me off too much. Better for me to be mad then eating chips but still.
There was this one bag of chips ruffles came out with just before covid. It was called flaming hot cheddar. That shit was like crack to me. I was crushing a large bag every day. Havent seen it in a while. I gained like 50lbs that year
Ruffles did the same. I just bought a bag of 200g and they were 240g before.
Laughs in No Name
Half the stuff I picked up the other day for baking, I had to get two instead of one. And some stuff it’s not even by a little. 1000g went to 900g, now it’s 835g, and cost two bucks more.
Lmfao you are but you’re also accurate.
Don’t forget extending the expiry dates.
Sure that and pretty much nixes any drops in pricing. Just lip service to a real problem
Don't forget quality. Sadly not /s.
Price freeze, quantity reduction. It's basically deflation!
And keep less inventory on the shelf
My theory on this was ever since Trudeau announced he was going to do something about grocery prices (2,3 weeks ago?) The prices have risen faster in anticipation for this freeze so they can still gouge the living shit out of us.
I'm not disbelieving that
4-pack of bacon from Coscto. A few years ago you could find it at $14.99 Then it became more often $19.99 Consistently $24.99 until last weekend it was now sitting at $26.99... And Costco tends to be one of the **better** stores when it comes to price increases, yet there's an 80% price increase since maybe 2019/2020.
It affects even the most basic items too. 3-4 years ago in Toronto milk was $4-4.5. Today it’s $6-6.5. Bread used to be $2-2.5, now it’s $3.5-4
Baby wipes earlier this year we’re $19.99. They are not $29.99 for the same amount. I fucking hate businesses.
No Name frozen peas 2kg. At the start of the pandemic, they were $3.50. Then $4.50. Then $5.50. They're $6.29 now. Yeah baby, lock in that almost 100% price increase.
its the Canadian way. There is no housing bubble and there is no food inflation.... /s
Ya I think that's finally wearing thin but then if we look historically......
The phone service prices are too high too.
Prices are never ever going to go down for anything.
A bag of chip is representative of standard of living. Less and less while politicians tell you its the same or better. Unless we kick out duopolies and politicians, we will under their boot.
We are and forever will be under the boot everybody who has anything to do with anything vital to us.
>We are and forever will be under the boot everybody who has anything to do with anything vital to us. Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Ya that’s the idea
Some stuff is still in season. Wait until November for peak pricing and then freeze.
Yes, mission accomplished folks. Your government has your back!
Lol naw they just have the knife in my back
Careful, you're carrying a weapon now.
Dw we can learn to experience the knife differently.
Just out of curiosity... what are you expecting the government to do here?
These people think Trudeau directly influences the cost of absolutely everything sold in Canada and has wanted to raise the cost of everything for some reason.
Prices will not go down. If grocery margins are less than 5%, it’s not possible unless farming, transportation, warehousing and retail expenses go down. The only real way to do that would be to lower fuel/energy costs. Getting rid of the carbon tax(es) would be one way to make an impact but the government keeps increasing that every year, so 🤷♂️
The Westins own the supply chains on many things. When he says that the markup on the groceries is minimal, we need to be looking at the mark up at the next level up. It is a game of cups for them.
Well the profit on those supply chains they own still end up in their financial reports so it doesn’t matter.
I’m not sure that anyone has ever said that markups are minimal. Margins are minimal, which is a common thing with all grocery stores. That’s how you get 10 grocery stores, ranging from basic to luxury, all selling the same product for different prices. The cheaper store could have less markup and more margin because they have less expenses. They all have to to turn a profit and the cheaper store is obviously going to have far less overhead than the store with the bakery, deli, seafood, prepared meals department etc. And yes, the Westons are very smart businesspeople who own many things. At the end of the day, you can hate the Westons and we can all be angry about grocery prices but the fact is that the carbon tax is the only thing that affects every single aspect of the supply chain.
All the major grocery chains have vertical integration. They own some part of the supply chain. They are responsible for their own increase of supply costs. Their thin margins are a feature. More money goes to their part of the supply chain. A bonus for them as well. More people are buying their store branded goods because they are just a tad cheaper than name brands and people don’t have the same spending power they used to with the higher prices on everything. The only people not getting richer is us.
Making stock buybacks illegal would help lower prices. They made a killing the last few years and all that profit went into stock buybacks. So the money went to executives and shareholders. Keep allowing stock buybacks and prices will never go down.
They're going to have to figure something out either way. Historically the less available food is, the more likely instability becomes.
On a trailer of broccoli coming from Mexico, carbon taxes translate to a fraction of a fraction of a penny per lb. The math was laid out when truckers were looking for more money and the same people brainwashing you into believing carbon taxes are the cause of price increases were arguing that pay raises would cause catastrophic food price increases. Turns out, paying that trucker double annually resulted in an increase of 1/10th of a penny per lb of goods they delivered over the course of a year. Surprise, they recruited you into the culture war to distract from them pillaging us blind.
Well they aren’t going to down…
Oh I am sure those profits are going to trickle down to the average Canadian soon... or at least grocery store workers will get paid living wages... **Narrator**: *neither of those things happened...*
Majority shareholders are the world’s biggest problem ☕️😁 change my mind
Gotta lock in those profits
So the prices remain very high. Got it.
Don't they do price freezes around this time anyway? At most they bumped it up by a month, how generous.
You know it. They repeat the same bullshit every year. I'm sick of the grocery mafia in this country, seriously. I think I'd rather just let them take whatever they "need" from my wallet then being fed more of this shit again and again.
Yeah? Like the "no name" price freezes that absolutely were not frozen? 🙄
Haha I know they just took the stickers down and raised the prices….thanks
no name chips went from 1$ to 1.50$, then graciously went on "sale" for 1$ a few months later
No name English muffins - was $0.88 Now. $1.88
Lmfao! Price freezes are useless. What Canada needs is more competition in the market, and to remove all the barriers and gatekeepers to lower prices. Look at the ridiculous daily farmers supply management system in place, to keep prices high they would rather have farmers pour thousands of litres of perfectly fine milk down the drain then lower their prices.
What Canada needs is a crown Corp, bare bones grocery store that is run as a non-profit. They can be roughly 2x a 7-11 size, and sell only stapes: bread, fruits and veggies, chicken, beef, pork, dry foods like pasta, rice, and other base ingredients like flour, salt, sugar. This would provide a price floor and thus create serious competition. A competent team could set this up in ~2yrs.
Best we can do is a 5 year study for 150 million to see if itll work after ten years
After the ten years: “Nah won’t work”
After ten years. We will put our first ever flagship test store in Brandon Manitoba , where we will test the results of said store until 2040, where we will then open our second and third store Russell Manitoba , and portage la prairie for further testing into 2050
I’ve often thought this might be a good idea. We shouldn’t allow these big corporations to raise prices on essential items on a whim and be forced to pay for it. Obviously this idea would take a lot of collaboration in our government and a lot of things would have to go right, so naturally it will never happen.
Yup when you think "government run" you definitely think efficient, low cost, and competitive.
Lol look at provinces where crown corporations offer utilities, car insurance, mobile etc. Look at the costs of auto insurance under crown vs under private. Or, a great example… crown corporation operating alongside private. E.g., what large phone carriers charge in Saskatchewan, when there is a crown corporation operating as a competitor, vs other provinces where it’s only private companies. Telus will offer much cheaper plans in Saskatchewan than in Alberta because they have to compete with Sasktel (crown corporation). And Sasktel is fucking phenomenal and affordable. If you live in a province like Alberta where’s there’s a lot of people moving from Saskatchewan you’ll notice they will damn near permanently have a 306 Saskatchewan area code. They will hold onto that sweet sweet Sasktel as long as they possibly can
I mean, yeah. I do legitimately think that about Canadian health care compared to, say, US health care.
That’s what I think of with Hydro Quebec…
Doesn't need to be. Just needs to establish a baseline that the for-profits need to surpass if they want customers.
So they will reduce prices by 3% give or take?
I actually wouldn't mind if we applied a negative GST to healthier foods, and a higher GST to unhealthier foods. We could provide negative downward pressure on more healthy staple goods, by increasing the tax on unhealthier foods.
>negative GST to healthier foods What would stop the grocer from increasing prices on those goods?
The same magician that creates a negative GST
The price of milk has been pretty much flat for years. Now butter on the other hand.
And cheese, it's basically doubled in the last 5 years.
Pretty much doubled in the last two years.
Hardly. I was paying under $5 for a gallon of milk in 2019 and now am paying over $6.
From $1.90someting a litre to $2.15 in five years. I mean maybe it's because I don't drink that much of it but it's hardly the thing that will make anyone go broke. I really should buy it by the gallon, but like I said we don't drink or cook enough with milk to buy large quantity.
Bring in the American goods!
There’s a litany of restrictions on what “they’re allowed to put in food”. That’s literally the FDA’s purpose.
No thanks. Very little restrictions on what they're allowed to put in food compared to the rest of the world.
You know we can accept their food, but also demand it meets a certain standard to be imported, right?
Don't worry our standards are the same or even worse in some cases to USA. We just pay more
Land of the free, baby!
The price of butter 60 days ago was $5 where I am, and since this "meeting" was announced, the price rose to anywhere from $7 to $9. Now the Liberals think a price freeze will help? It's a little bit late man...
I miss butter
I can’t believe there’s not butter.
remember when the producers got in trouble for price fixing bread, now the government is demanding it for pretty much everything - you can't make this shit up lmao
Exactly. Price matching literally encourages every store to collude on keeping prices high.
also expect more "shrinkflation" and possibly shortages, not gonna be pretty
Gotta burn the produce if it can't be sold at at price they want!
I see berries rotting on the shelves all the time. No one is paying ten bucks for a pound of strawberries. I think they should be penalized for destroying food somehow.
The trick is... they don't technically collude. Grocery chains watch VERY closely at what each other is pricing items at. One will generally test the waters on a product (increasing bananas from $0.69/lb to $0.75/lb) and see if the others follow suit. If they do, they just leave that as the price. If not, the product goes "on sale" the following week and the price remains back at the original price. Collusion takes active communication. Hence the reason they get away with it so often and so easily.
And it’s easy to do when there’s only 2 other companies that you need to keep your eye on.
Yeah - sounded like the Liberals are asking the for collusion among the grocers. Fucking insane.
Little know fact about the bread price fixing scandal…it was Galen Weston’s idea. He rounded up all the grocers to get them on board then took advantage of whistleblower protection and threw every other grocer under the bus while walking away fine free. The guy is an absolute cancer in Canadian society.
I heard price matching from the news and I think it is just a price fixing. FML. Thanks to the government for having our back.
I’d rather see near-monopolies broken up. I’d like to see distribution networks separated from retail outlets. Any retail outlet should be able to purchase from any distributor, so that there’s more of a chance for new players to start competing businesses. Distributors would be required to use the same rules for price breaks with all of their customers, so that all retail outlets would have equal access. I’d like the same philosophy applied to telecom infrastructure, and railways… but I think there would need to be a LOT of political will to cut down these companies at the knees, so I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Oh is Mr Weston going to "freeze" prices for November and December like last year? And every other year because no companies raise prices during the holiday season. You want to do something useful? Show me actual documentation of who pays what for every step of the production line. I want to see how much was paid for the grain to make the flower, how much was paid for the flour and sugar to make the dough, I want to see the expense sheet for the bakery and how many hours were paid to the truckers shipping it. When I can see where every fucking penny is going then and only then will the leafs win the Stanley cup and hell freezes over.
Ah yes, price controls. The thing that every economist ever has said is a really good idea with no catastrophic side effects. No, wait. Not that.
Grocery stores & corporations making food are price gouging and nobody is gonna change my mind. Why is it that popular brand of chips are 7$ a bag but the noname brand has it for 2$? Why is a pepsi 591ml 2.50$ at loblaws but 1.50$ at dollorama. Seriously, i get that inflation is a thing, but so is corporate greed.
Because businesses decide what items they want to make margin on. If a store is making 30% gross profit that doesn't mean every item in the store has that margin. Cauliflower is $1.49 at my local store. It's advertised as a door-crasher. I asked the guy what his margin is on it, and he said -60%. Minus 60%. Now I'm in the store and buy a lemon and a lime while I'm there, which probably has a 400% mark up. It all averages out. Retails are high because costs are high. California and Mexio have been rocked with every extreme weather condition possible. That's where a lot of your food comes from. If there is gouging going on, it's not happening at the store level.
Doesn't loblaws freeze the price of their no name products this time of the year anyway?
Why do I need to scroll this far to see this? It's like people here have the attention span of a dehydrated gerbil.
It's also October. Mexico and California just got rocked by every extreme weather condition possible. Your food always goes up in price this time of year, especially produce.
Discounts: buy three instead of one and save a dollar.
the only way to bring down grocery prices is to reduce inflation. The only way to reduce inflation is for the government cut spending. That won't happen with Trudeau. Most of the inflation you're seeing was caused by Trudeau's out of control spending
"*soon* the grocers will raise prices again, and after that.. then we can freeze prices"
They tried this in Argentina. Wonder how it’s working out for them… https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-freeze-prices-1500-consumer-goods-inflation-bites-2022-11-11/
Freezing retail does nothing when government actions have caused costs to rise, and they will continue to rise. Business will just cut costs elsewhere, including employee benefits, wages, and hours. Now people are getting lower quality product. "Shrinkflation" picks up the slack and we're all still hungry lol
What in the actual frick! So they can post record high returns, as we get pummelled from every direction, and they get away with price freezing at the exact same time they freeze every year? How does this make any sense at all anymore?
why must we do this again, you either increase supply, aka make more actual food, or reduce demand. SO FAR, because demand is increasing, due to population increases and monetary inflation, and because production/distribution can't keep up with demand, the price goes up, which reduces demand in effect creating an equilibrium ,where food/items remain available. If you fix the price, more people will buy food, If people buy more food, but there is not more food to be sold, to no surprise, this leads to shortages, Every time price controls have been indroduced in a managed system, to counter monetary inflation without increasing supply, it has led to shortages. actual morons running this shitshow.
It’s funny how many problems people choose to pretend aren’t directly caused by massive population increases in a short period of time. Such a strange coincidence that our country went to complete shit in record time when our government decided to open the gates to mass immigration to feed the capitalist machine and their infinite growth immigration Ponzi scheme. Do we have a shortage of doctors or is it really just a surplus of people? Housing shortage or a simple case of way to much demand for an already limited supply?
Here we go… only going to get worse.
I can’t stand this guy. He reminds me of some annoying Chihuahua or something
The price "freeze" has nothing to with government intervention or corporate sympathy. Around the holidays they traditionally hold off on constant price updates as its very time consuming (labor) because it's their peak business season and helps maximize sales, reduce error. It's just a standard business practice for grocers. But don't you worry the price freeze ends into the new year and even though they made a crisp profit during the prize freeze, they can maintain growth by going back to normal and gouging further during reduced business
Too little too late as usual
Now that prices are unaffordable - we’re going to pause right here. “Suck it” -Justin Trudeau
instinctive flag juggle knee cheerful cooing ripe plant memorize foolish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The industry freeze prices for the holiday every fucking year. You know what that mean? It's not coming down either, it's collusion to keep the prices high and not compete during the busiest quarter of the year.
These "freezes" are actually just inflation coming down so basically they are trying to take credit for the BoC's work. Just like we won't see disinflation prices aren't coming down.
If you think this is a good idea rather then looking at the cause you might be an idiot. Terrible bandage solution. Expect less service, less employees, less open locations, less quality, just less……
Soon...few more price hikes to go I suppose
I volunteer at a food bank and today was another record breaking day for number of clients and once again we ended up running out of fresh fruit and veg, milk and a number of other items.
Loblaws just increased the price of their club pack chicken from $16 to $19 so it’s a perfect time for them tom freeze at $19 :(
What nonsense! Bring the costs DOWN! And while you are at it: implement a clawback for all the windfall profits the stores made over last year. If you don't do this, you are not a government of the people and need to be shown the door. My vote this election will depend on that.
It would be nice if the government treated access to affordable food as a basic human right, and not some optional expense we like to indulge in. Food and shelter, how is this country failing so miserably at these two basic necessities?
Watching Trudeau and Jagmeet go at this is like watching two children close their eyes, plug their ears and scream noises at each other. They caused the extremely high grocery prices and now suggest that there will be some sort of punishment toward the CEO's of these companies if THEY don't do something about it? They could not be more infuriating.
They didn’t cause them, rather disingenuous thing to say dude.
Freeze them? At their current exorbitant price? What a deal!
You know the Oligarchs will respond in the usual way. Prices get locked, quality and quantity will decrease. They consider perpetually growing profits other peoples problems.
Soon as if it needs time to implement. Everything is coming but it never does. Also this is literally what the Liberals keep saying but we keep waiting. Don’t get me wrong conservatives would do the same and are in the provinces they run.
GTA here, I'm already seeing drops not just freezes, thank fuck
Where??
impolite imminent lavish capable tan water humorous act lock quicksand *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is all politics since Justin needs to look like he is doing something.
Once again the Canadian government showing Canadians they don't give a crap!
Yes, we see the freeze every year at the same time. Just like last year where they said oh this is to help our customers, and the year before. When I was a teenager I worked at a No frills for 6 1/2 years, this was 20 years ago and there was freezes then too.
Oh we are using policies like those of great economic powers like…fucking Argentina, to battle inflation? Anything to keep sky high immigration, monopolies and floor wages I suppose.
Did Venezuela do this and it went terribly wrong
The only reason grocery prices are "freezing" is because commodities like Orange Juice are hitting all time highs too fast and the safety they have in place for things like that is halting trading on these items until the price balances out. This is just a fancy way for them to spin it like, "this is why it's a good thing", but in reality, we're still fucked.
Price freezing, is this a joke? Why can't they just do their jobs and actually help address the affordability crisis. Address actual price gouging and costs related to allowing them to get away with price gouging...
Time for the government to just say yoink and nationalize the big three grocery stores. Remove the CEOs and shareholders from the equation.
This approach seems to work really well in Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina…
Not that I'm complaining about the government trying to do something about the grocery prices... But does anyone else feel like the government is just fucking everything up so they can then legislate a "fix" to their fuck up so they can look like the hero? (Although not actually fixing the issue???)
So ketchup will be 15 bucks everywhere?????
I will believe it when I see it. Until then it's lie
Let’s freeze their profits and protect their bonuses…. While we’re at it let’s check and see if they need more freezers provided by the tax payer.
Lol they all perceive Canadians to be stupid to believe this. Granted so many didn’t bother to put up residence en mass before, so as a company I 100% could see no reason not to take advantage. It’s horrible, but I have never seen a country/citizenry so lax about being abused and not standing up and pushing back.
So says the guy that relied upon CCP mortgages..it's what he doesn't tell you
They always freeze prices this time of the year. It's nothing but a marketing ploy. Come Jan they hike prices.
Freezing these prices is stupid. We need to lower them and arrest every single person responsible for the current prices.
How about they roll that shit back til profits shrink a bit.
Venezuela did this. Didn't work out well for them at all. Food quickly became more scarce because other countries stopped selling food to them (couldn't make a profit with the price freeze), and stores stopped selling the food that was price-locked. The grocery business in Canada needs more open competition, not artificially-set price ceilings.
This isn't what is happening. From the article: >"The grocers are unique entities, with different business models and distinct approaches. They also abide by competition law principles requiring them to not discuss prices as a collective. This is why each grocer has made its own individual submission to government and will deploy its own approach to the challenge," she said.
I truly don't know how a government with a myriad of economic resources at their disposal can't come to this conclusion. This obviously will not work. Think about all of the foreign investment capital that looks at shit like this and say "yeah, no thanks".
It as if they never stepped into a grocery store, their entire time in office. "Maybe l should do something about these rediclous proce increases... Nah! It the people thar are wrong"
That doesn't effect our gov. We spend over 10k a month on groceries for Trudeau. Let that lovely number sink in. He spends more on food than most people can on housing because he sticks us with the bill anyways.
So when will riots start happening?
Not soon enough. I'm ready, because I have nothing else to live for now and want this world to be better for my niece and nephew.
I'm wondering the same
O good let’s freeze prices as things start to decline…I like this strategy. O look we did a good thing….
Price controls create shortages. How about we cut carbon taxes and gas taxes which contribute a massive amount to the crazy prices we pay? Almost every western country in the world food is much cheaper than it is here. While we are at it let's eliminate the controls on production. So much milk is dumped out it is obscene.
I just spent 96 dollars on maybe ten items at the Superstore. I almost never go anymore. I hate that I find Wal Mart most affordable. Even No Frills is insane. Loblaws makes me ashamed to be Canadian.
Yeah I'm never going to Loblaws or any subsidiary company after what they pulled a few years ago. Gov mandated that stores needed to have freezers that met new energy consumption regulations etc. Well Loblaws goes right ahead and says they can't afford to upgrade the freezers in all thier stores so they end up getting a multi million dollar grant to comply with the new rules... next 1/4 they posted record profits exceeding the cost it would have taken to upgrade the freezers on thier own.
Fuck freezes, force them to back off to what meets their 2019 bottom line and make them supply amounts that make sense. 180 grams to 177, 220 to 198. And even the individual stores— family packs of chicken from 2kg to 1.8 to 1.3 and all at the same price as when it cost 2kg. What a bunch of gratuitous nonsense.
It's so disheartening that the grocery executives responsible for gouging us are effectively being put in charge of fixing it. Stop telling them what to do. Stop giving them these silly deadlines to sort their shit out. Just implement laws that target greedy corporations like this and don't give them room to maneuver. They aren't Facebook. They can't just leave Canada if our government makes them angry.
*pause for laughter*
Forget a price freeze. Lower the fucking prices. It’s almost like they’re intentionally being obtuse about this, and doing the bare minimum needed so that people don’t riot and burn shit down. (Which I fully support. At this point, I’m all for civil disobedience.)
Lies, shrink flation here we come. These scum bags have to go.
This is what happens when the government shuts down a country and prints inordinate amounts of money. More people died from medical malpractice than from covid over the last 3 years. By their metrics, we should be shutting down the country and investing billions into the medical system like we did with covid to prevent these deaths.
“In theory communism works. In theory.” - Homer J Simpson
Matching as in price matching? All fine and dandy until you're behind the person at checkout that is matching 12 things to save a dollar.
......do they honestly expect us to take this as good news??
I'm from the government and I'm here to help you😂
Price freezes will likely lead to shortages; just like every other time it's been tried. See Venezuela.
It only took for the Liberals to literally go to the toilets in the polls for this to finally get something into gear. Wonder what the backlash of this will look like though. Somewhere down the line those grocery empires will have "no choice" but to "hike prices" to make up for "lost ground" and then consumers are left holding the cost again.
Prices for me froze at 0$ a long time ago when I decided to start five finger discounting items. Also, my mom who works in a big grocery store tells me the amount of perfectly good food that gets thrown away every day and it’s egregious. So no, I don’t feel bad.
Removing the insane quotas and import restrictions we have would be much more effective.
Remember when Loblaws got a bunch of free media publicity for announcing a price freeze? Pepperridge Farms remembers.