Canadians are now stealing overpriced food from grocery stores with zero remorse

And they're bringing out the old 'insured' line, as if insurance premiums don't come out of the price everyone else is paying. And, furthermore, I don't really think stores are insured for or would file claims for 'regular' shoplifting; it doesn't make sense to buy insurance for events that are occuring continuously and causing relatively small losses; insure for looting/riots, yes, that's a large loss and low probability (hopefully).

If I lived on a farm then I would feed all the food waste to pigs, then eat the pigs to achieve near zero food waste. Just like my uncle used to do. But I live in a suburb and my neighbors don't appreciate pigs (or compost piles). So anything we can't eat goes in the garbage.

Why are Toronto grocery stores selling some chicken breasts for nearly $27/kg? [1] https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/why-are-toronto-grocery-stores-se...

Ending the war in Ukraine might help. The disruption in direct food production as well as fertilizer production has a big impact on food prices worldwide; even if your locale doesn't source directly from Ukraine.

Otherwise, there's the usual options: choose less expensive altnernatives, where available. Grow your own, if economical. Forage, if possible.

But it's also true that prices jumped, but margins were unchanged, so they were making more money for the same work. In an efficient market, you'd expect margins to drop. (Unless it can all be explained by inflation of course and that extra money gets you as far as it used to).

* https://old.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/xqigdu/profit_marg...

I especially like it when they have a limit of 10 on some special, so I pick up 10 from my online order, and grab 10 from the store.

Substitutions could use some more logic. Soda often goes out of stock. I don't need 40 bottles, but I'd like a mix of 10 of whichever 4 I like are in stock. That's a lot to ask of their ordering system, so I get 10-40 bottles...

Some ethnic communities do in fact have an array of services that are provided inside the community, like loans and food banks and so they can negotiate directly with producers in bulk. That's how these communities thrives where ever they live. In some communities, someone who wants to buy a house or a business isn't going to ask for a loan at a regular bank.

Co-operatives do work but often legislators are making it extremely hard for people to organize, because of the regulatory capture that favor their wealthy allies.

In Canada, our anti-trust regulator is completely feckless and captured by industry.

Here is some reading on this topic:

https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/07/09/supermarkets-are...

https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/10/24/canadas-competit...

Suggesting that people who can't afford to eat should liaise with their elected official, who should present it to the legislature, empower the Competition Bureau to properly investigate the issue, then wait for the Competition Bureau to audit these companies and win a case through the judicial system (and that's the ideal case) – well, I think that's going to happen too slow to prevent starvation.

I'm personally worried about this because rising food prices predict riots and rebellions through history. Either prices have to come down, wages have to go up, or we're gonna see a greater loss of social cohesion and we'll have a much bigger problem on our hands. Getting the government to act on this on a macro scale is going to be a huge task given who's in power right now.

Is it the bread sellers problem that families are starving, though?

Vilifying the making of profit of scarce goods like bread during a famine is exactly the wrong idea, and only makes the problem worse. We _want_ people to be able to make a profit by helping others. If as a society we shame people for selling bread when there are hungry people, ironically there will be less bread sellers and prices will go up.

The way to alleviate food insecurity is to promote more competition among food producers/retailers, and to allow price signals to work their magic. Of course, combined with a reasonable redistribution scheme to provide a baseline level of income to people.

Edit: someone mentioned much saner prices as non meat eaters. I eat meat, but much less than most.

Its about on track with the US. In 2021, the US average expenditure for a family of four was 11,908 [1]. Converting USD into CAD yields... 15,938.56. And to add to the anecdote, I spent about 4,000 on food in 2022 just for myself, so that tracks personally at least.

This is all food, including dining. Dining prices are dominated by labor costs. But even raw food is currently challenging, with the war in Ukraine cutting off wheat growing and fertilizer production, and bird flu cutting supply of chicken and eggs.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables/calendar-year/mean-item-share...

Privatized, for-profit food will result in hungry people. This is not at all new. There will also be stories about welfare moms stealing candy bars to distract from the real issue because once people are angry about anything they stop being reasonable, take sides, and dig their heels in.

Privatized, for-profit food will also result in price gouging for the less affluent. This is also not new. The current price bumps are being felt by the middle class, though, and that's a potential danger to the price-raisers. People often see it as ethical to beat up the bully (thus our entirely punitive prison system); parallel to that, they see it as ethical to steal from the thief.

Under capitalism, why would anybody want to open a grocery store wherever people steal massively?