I hear it break on the talk radio first, it was the topic of the day and it was slamming the phone lines, to say that folks were unhappy was a understatement but soon enough came the truth, well i will take the 30% price off as its better then nothing.
Canadian’s are a pessimistic lot really and we are used to paying higher food prices then many other places and the smaller your town or the more remote you live the higher those prices are going to be and they used to have food programs when i lived in the north, they were bias as (%&$ but they worked well if you could use them..
Today’s programs are a load of BullS(^t and do not help to the same degree at all, most of us live in brutal short growing season’s with built in challenges, the east coast has areas that can grow well for certain crops, we all love our PEI potatoes and the green belt in southern Ontario along with parts of BC are our big fruit growing belts and of course we are famous for our ability to grow grains and pulses.
hhttps://www.cbc.ca/news/business/loblaws-discount-competition
“”””””The revelation that Loblaw will end its 50 per cent discount on perishable foods like meat, fruit and vegetables as they near their best-before dates should attract the attention of Canada’s Competition Bureau, says one industry expert.
Prof. Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-food Analytics Lab, believes the action taken by the grocery chain to align its policy with other food retailers might be considered anti-competitive behavior.
In an email to Charlebois Monday, Loblaw spokesperson Catherine Thomas said the company is moving away from offering a range of discounts between 30 and 50 per cent on “serve-tonight” products and toward “a more predictable and consistent offering, including more consistency with our competitors.””””
In a nut shell, they know they have a us between an rock and hard place, the big stores bought up and grew bigger, they drove out the mom and pops stores, they swallowed the main streets small businesses and now they are THE place to shop in many places..
What stands against them.. Dollars stores and community run food programs.. and on a even smaller scale, small scale farmers and farmgate sales and CSA’s and farmers markets. Green food boxes and bulk buying stores..
Already our food banks are overwhelmed and we have no provincial or federal food program like other counties can have. I can only imagine how many people this effects, we already have so many vulnerable Canadian’s that are making a hard choice between rent and food and many of those that are sitting borderline just took a massive blow this week with a 20% cost increase per item at one of the biggest store owners in our country.
These are not the people that drive cars and shop once or twice a month, these are not the Costco folks, these are those that buy small amounts as they can, they are the ones that go to the shop at the end of the day or first thing in the morning to see what was moved to the day of use 50% of pricing.
I am both deeply saddened and pissed that a company that made the highest profits ever in their company history last year, who have been hauled in twice in 2023 to answer to the federal goverment would just raise their middle finger and effectively charge 20% more on its must use day of items.
I am not going to even remotely pretend to know the answers but if you have built your food shed, use it, barter and trade skills if you need to but use it, if you have gaps, look for ways to use your local food sheds, ask on community groups if anyone does bulk buys and splits things, if anyone know of green food boxes or local farmers that sell farmgate or local butchers that sell local raised.
Personally i can no longer recommend farmer markets locally, their prices are so high that i just walk though, shake my head and walk away.. they have become very much for place for those with excess to attend, not like when i was younger and i could go to the farmers markets because it was cheaper then going to the stores.. at least locally its flipped and in a big way.
Want the good buy on the roma’s for sauce making, the store will sell local for a fraction of the price of what they charge you at the market and do not bother asking for seconds or end of day sales, these things locally are a thing of the past.. if you still have these, good! i am happy for you..
What do you think of this change? Do you agree, they did it because they could, because they do not care what the pr is! Do you see anything changing in the future for the good or just think it will get a lot worse yet.
Just another Day on the Farm 
There is not much that gets my back up like being held over a barrel on food: pricing, availability, quality. I cannot fathom how one would feed a family of four on todays prices without ending up in the poor house. Myself and a friend are of ‘average’ income, no kids at home and at this moment are both working on a ‘no buy’ January. We both garden, can like fiends and still find ourselves budget thin on what we need for the pantry.
We have a large farmers market here, I never go. Parking is almost nonexistent, half of it is ‘crafts’, and it’s expensive. (But kudos to the farmers who can get the prices they feel they need).
We have produce/fruit trucks come up from the okanagan. Years ago I could grab a 100lbs tomatoes and get a super discount on the volume. A couple years ago I stopped in at one (tomatoes were
2.50 a pound), asked the price if I bought 100lbs…the guy said ‘do the math’. I walked away. This year, Romas on sale .99 lb, at Superstore – I loaded up 100lbs, got to the checkout with an empty box so the cashier could Tare her scale. She informed me that the tomatoes had to be weighed separately, and she couldn’t Tare the box. I said never mind, just weigh them in the box, I’ll pay for the box. Nope. There was a lengthy lineup behind me, none looking happy about having to stand there while she weighed loose tomatos. I pushed the cart through and left it there for someone else to put back.
I’ve always maintained one can ‘speak with your wallet’ and the older I get the more I do that. Am I winning? No – I have no tomatoes in my pantry 😂
But it’s the damn point. Grocery stores should be working for our dollar, and they’re not. In the last few years I have become a flyer hound (the Flipp App). I won’t buy anything that isn’t a super deal. And although I already make most everything from scratch, I’m always sourcing ways to make even more from scratch.
Honestly, the ‘food problem’ in this country has gotten so big I don’t think it’ll ever be fixed.
Interesting reading. I am not the shopper in our little family – I am the grower so I have no concept if the prices of things.Thank goodness for my glasshouse and the greens in there or I would probably get scurvy over the winter!
Big stores are all about the bottom dollar. It seems it is cheaper to throw produce out than sell it cheaper. Who knew!
The sad thing is that is not just produce, this effects meats, dairy, bread and bakery products. It would be bad enough if it was just fruits and veggies but it also effects all premade meals and so much more. I do not think they expect it will change the buying habits of peaple, they expect to just get 20% more profit on each item despite it being sold as use today. while some of us do live in areas that can go greenhouse and all of us can do micro greens indoors the truth is most of our county its not really possible to grow in the winter unless you are heated with grow lights etc.. I mean today is a bright sunny winter day with a high of -27c plus windchill factor.. the costs to heat a greenhouse in these temps is outlandish and you can not grow without heat added in these kinds of temps.
I am lucky that I attached my little glass house to the south side of the house with a door into the wash house. So it shares the house heat. Though my tomatoes are struggling this year!
Prices are so high – it must be so hard to feed a family.
Unfortunately, I fear fresh food will only become more and more expensive. It can cost more for me to buy the ingredients to make a meal than it does to buy a ready made meal complete with additional chemicals and salt. We are blessed in this area as we can buy from many of the colonies. So far, they keep their prices just under farmer market prices.
yes i am glad you are able to buy from the colonies, its a great choice if you can get it.
It pissed me off no end, not because we have to rely on those sorts of discounts, we’re a step or two above that, (for now, who knows what the future will bring) but the sheer venal GREED of it is breathtakingly stupid and so shortsighted I’m surprised their halos aren’t strangling them (‘them’ being whoever thought this was a good strategy)
As the need becomes greater and the sales reflect that, “they” know that they can reduce the sale amount and be greedy and it will still all sell as the sheer number of people coming to the stores in need is increasing..
Just read on the late news, Loblaws is reinstating the 50% off sale. 🙂
well thats good news for those that had it but it was clear from the amount of folks who answered on facebook to the post that many many of them only had the max of 30 percent off in different parts of the country, so i am glad that its coming back as a possible but clearly many places never had it in the first place.