Canadians are angry with their biggest supermarket
bbc.com
bbc.com
Then why doesn’t Canada have a huge network of ethnic grocery stores tailored to more frugal immigrant communities? I assume it does and the issue is one of consumer education.
They’re all over the US in every state with a decent immigrant population. Mexican, Persian, Armenian, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and so on - that’s just the ones off the top of my head that I shop at monthly.
Chicken is usually cheaper at Costco and milk/eggs/cheese at Trader Joes, but all other meat and produce is significantly cheaper, on the order of 2-3x lower than the price at Costco/TJs. Their produce varies more based on whats in season and what their suppliers have the most of, but they also have crazy deals every week. My favorite this year was rebranded Sumo mandarins that sold for $0.33/lb which everyone else was selling for $2-3/lb (I was eating 3 pounds a day for a month).
Not when you're known as "throwup".
I did see something that looked like a Sumo call a 'dekopon' citrus at major grocers on the east coast, but they were maybe $1/lb cheaper as best and not as good or large as one with a Sumo sticker. They were more tart and not as an intense flavor.
It's my understanding that the variety has existed for a long time in Japan and Sumo is just one specific branded citrus sub-variety from California.
They were just as large, sweet, seedless, and easy to peel as the Sumos with identical appearance. This is the fourth or fifth year in a row that they've had them at a deep discount and I started eating them when Trader Joes first introduced them at $4/piece so there was definitely a delay before they appeared at other stores. Trader Joes tends to get them a few weeks earlier than the other store so I usually compare them every year.
I don't know if they're actually Sumos or not but they're just as sweet and identical in every other way. It might be a pretty obvious cross so once the farm that made and copyrighted the Sumo name, everyone else figured it out too but they can't sell it as Sumos because that's a registered trademark. I.e. these guys, which don't look like any other Satsuma I've ever seen or found online (real satsumas with stickers are in stock right now at one of my stores): https://paradisenursery.com/product/satsuma-mandarin-trees/
I didn't realize that Sumos were from California. The company that grows them could also just be dumping excess inventory in the local market without stickers to maintain their brand.
Two quick web searches reveal that Canada has about 1/10th the USA population at ~37m people as of 2021. Canada also has roughly 1.6% more landmass than the USA. I don’t think there’s the density to support your theory.
That's 18 million people or half the population living within spitting distance of the US border and that doesn't even include British Columbia. The vast wilderness is largely unpopulated.
Then you are a nuance of a trip if you can't carry the fresh food staples, especially outside a metro area.
But I don't see that happening because that'll lose votes in areas where the Liberal party is weak.
It was done for tobacco in 2009, but the tobacco industry in Canada was already essentially nothing. The cost to get out was still massive, but only a tiny, tiny fraction of what it would cost to get out of dairy, poultry, and eggs.
Cell carriage is, indeed, another great example. Many of the home-grown independent telcos in Canada started operating cell networks in the mid-2000s, but they were never able to win over the customers loyal to Bell and Rogers. The CEO of one of those telcos, which remains a strong player in the wired market in my local area, states that venturing into mobile was his biggest mistake.
It has nothing to do with loyalty, the coverage of these networks is just bad. I'm on one right now. Canada is a huge sprawling country and many people venture far for camping, to cottages and so on, and they won't go with a cell provider where they lose service 10 mins outside of Toronto.
It's even worse sometimes, coverage in cities adjacent to Toronto, like Oakville, is also sometimes bad. Canada's problem with mobile is sprawl and a largely ineffective regulator.
They had nationwide agreements. They still do, technically, but no longer operate any cell sites, now essentially being a Bell reseller. Even as a reseller, their customer base hasn't grown in any meaningful way, certainly not beyond the wired customer audience. In fact, I bet you don't even know their names. Nobody in Canada cares to look beyond their loyalty.
Perhaps, but as they are owned by the customer (or government in a few cases), that would ultimately be on the customer to decide. If future service, price, or quality was of concern, they could easily reject the deal.
Canadians are risk averse, too afraid to stand out and too eager to put down America and claim to be better than them for any significant change to happen.
Maybe the worst out of the developed countries across all metrics.
Walmart took over around a hundred or so of the long-established Woolco stores, and converted them to Walmart stores. The Woolco stores I'm aware of were then replaced with new larger Walmart-built store in the same area within a few years.
I think Target's main problem was more timing rather than execution. In 1994, Canada still had a relatively strong middle class with money to spend, although that would eventually be harmed thanks to NAFTA, excessive government interference in the economy, and excessive immigration. By 2011 when Target showed up, Canada's middle class was already suffering, and it has only gotten much worse since then.
All of the Target stores I ever visited in Canada were decent. The pricing typically wasn't as competitive as Walmart's was, but the Target stores were generally a nicer experience.
It might have worked if they started with a few stores to work out the kinks and incorporate the data into their planning systems, but they went for a huge launch instead and couldn't keep shelves stocked because nothing was where it needed to be.
The author gets a job at Whole Foods and then works his way through the food chain, reporting every step of the way, and relating it back to what is seen and experienced at the store. Really excellent reporting IMO.
Easy to point at things like 'record profits' of Loblaws, without looking at if their margins have changed (they haven't). If you keep the same margins and have the amount of business with inflation then of course there are 'record profits'.
Yup that’s an extra buck fitty on your $100 of groceries
The other problem with these kinds of comparisons is size of country and if the average cost of a product is a nationwide calculation. Food costs in Labrador; Alaska; Hawai'i; and the Yukon are very different from more populated States and Provinces close to transportation routes. The entire UK is barely the size of the US's North East, and not nearly the size of even Ontario.
Otherwise its a bit like saying that Ireland has the highest GDP per capita.
TL;DR Canada has highly protectionist dairy and poultry sectors that artificially constrict supply of dairy and poultry. You'll periodically read reports of dairy farmers intentionally dumping perfectly good milk [2] because they produced more than their allotted quota.
Even worse, all the federal political parties are too cowardly to stop it; in fact, the House of Commons recently passed [3] a private member's bill that essentially prevents the Minister of Foreign Affairs from negotiating any trade agreement that would weaken the supply management regime. (As you can imagine, Canada often gets called out for its hypocrisy during trade negotiations.) The politicians are scared to anger dairy farmers, particularly the ones in Quebec.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/dairy-covid-19-1.5528331
[3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/eca53705d5e7568f5ed88c7...
The Progressive Conservatives were never afraid of angering dairy farmers. They ran on the very platform of ending the supply management in the 90s (granted, it didn't secure them a win, obviously). And, indeed, the PCs who remained in the CPC ranks have shown that they continued to believe in it, sometimes quite vocally. It's interesting that the Reformers are such scaredy cats.
Checking out Loblaws' six-month stock market performance, we see a rise from $122 per share to $161 per share, 30% increase since the botcott started.
The highly unpopular government has significantly raised taxes on truckers and farmers, leading to food inflation. Rather than accepting responsibility, this 4th place political party, which is going to lose in the next election, is scapegoating grocery stores. However, this blame game isn't convincing anyone.
Unless, perhaps, you think Canadians have traded going to restaurants with fasting?
But if people had an issue with Loblaw, why would they buy more groceries from them?
This is not correct. Government policy of continuously purchasing power of currency dictates nominal profits and stock price should go up even if profit margins do not.
Loblaw's PE ratio is 24, a bit high I'd say. Implying not good enough profits.
Looking at gross profit across the last 4 quarters. No significant change.
So you make some assumptions and guesses here which aren't correct, then went on with analysis anyway.
>I think the fact that Canadians are upset with Loblaws is pretty well documented at this point.
This is perhaps/maybe true amongst the NDP and virtually nobody else. Liberals have voted against the NDP on this matter several times now.
This "pretty well documented" probably needs a better source when public data denies this.
I have no idea where you're getting your information, but you seem out of touch. The widespread mockery they received for their "generous price freeze" on no name items was virtually unanimous.
You cede your position on the stock details and only respond to a small mostly unrelated sentence.
I collected my information from the Toronto stock exchange.
>The widespread mockery they received for their "generous price freeze" on no name items was virtually unanimous.
This is another thing which I never saw. Not very widespread obviously. Especially given investor sentiment toward loblaws.
So the Liberals taking a ton of heat over causing high inflation, amended the competition act, in september, to temporarily force grocery stores to freeze pricing. https://openparliament.ca/bills/44-1/C-56/
There was no specific against loblaws factor here, but it wasn't loblaws doing this out of the kindness of their heart.
It's interesting how out of touch you seem to be. I've provided sourcing along the way here.
It's very interesting how much damage these echo chambers are doing to democracy. How has the governments not essentially banned all this censorship?
Everyone else is just checking the weekly specials and shopping where the deals are, Loblaws stores included, if they give a shit about grocery prices at all.
And that's coming from someone who utterly despises the Conservative party.
A Conservative government might impose a slight reduction in the rate, to create the appearance of differentiating themselves from the Liberals. I don't think they'd bring it down much beyond that.
I certainly don't see the Conservative Party putting in place the negative immigration rate that's now unfortunately required to deal with the significant economic and social problems Canada is facing. I doubt they'd send home all of the temporary foreign workers, and deport the fake "refugees" who entered from the US, for example.
Even the PPC, which is perhaps the most willing of the broadly mainstream parties to properly deal with this situation, is still calling for an immigration rate of "between 100,000 and 150,000 annually" in its current platform (https://www.thepeoplespartyofcanada.ca/issues/immigration).
The Conservative Party will do what the Conservative Party in the UK did: bring in MASSIVE AUSTERITY. When people start defaulting on their mortgages en mass the government will step in to buy up all the dodgy loans. In, short the taxpayer will be burdened with this huge debt. The Conservatives will say they have to introduce AUSTERITY to pay down this enormous debt. That means savage cuts to services. Just like in the UK. Ten years of Austerity in the UK has turned in the UK into a third world country. The only thing that will "save" Canada from third world status is that it has lots of natural resources. Provided there is demand for them and that they don't give it away too cheaply.