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.
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.
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.
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
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 $10.99
A co-op. You all pitch in and buy bulk straight from the farm and then distribute it without a markup. Obviously there are distribution costs as well which get divided by the number of participants in the "group buy"
I have a csa to get seasonal stuff and eggs, a local farmers market for meat and berries. I hit up a locally owned Vietnamese grocery store for imported stuff and then costco once a quarter or so for bulk stuff and a little bit of processed stuff. Cut my food costs by more than half. Berries are 5 for 2.5 pints (5 of of those containers you get at the grocery store), I got kolbasa today, 10$ for about 2ft worth. Amazing quality too.
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!
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
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!
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.
Bob, the store’s owner, said he remained confident in the legal services of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe to resolve the matter expeditiously and return to operations.
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.