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Why Canadians are angry with their biggest supermarket

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11ywyg6p0o

Food prices, including a $40 chicken, has stoked fury and calls for big foreign supermarket chains to come to Canada.

Why Canadians are angry with their biggest supermarket

Canada is searching for an international grocer to enter its domestic market, after years of anger from shoppers over high food prices, much of it directed at one of the big players. But would an Aldi or a Lidl solve the problem?

14 comments

psvrh

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No.

Taxing the billionaires that have profited off the status quo would, but under the rules of modern neoliberalism, market failures can only be fixed by more market economics.

Regulations? Public services? Nope, can't do that. Only more markets. That's the only solution we're allowed to consider, no matter how many times it's failed already.

then_three_more

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Why would an increase in competition not help?

Tenoteve

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Because the other super market brands are also huge corporations and everything they sell is huge corporations. Which, in the end, only serve a few billionaires.

psvrh

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Grocery is a low-margin, high-volume business with huge startup costs and not a lot of supplier elasticity. Anyone coming into Canada should not expect to make money for years.

The last attempt was Target, and while they were the architects of their own fate in a lot of ways, even they weren't planning to be profitable for years.

Aldi or Lidl could come in, but they'd be years lining up real estate leases, suppliers (both food and packaging/ops) all while trying to compete is already-saturated markets, against competitors that are vertically integrated (especially LCL/Loblaw) and already have much of the existing base locked up.

Assuming they even stay around, it's likely they'd sell out as soon as their shareholders got twitchy about yearly losses.

If the government was serious about competition, trying to bribe a foreign company with billions of dollars would be a huge waste of money. A better option would be either nationalizing one of the existing chains or taxing their owners appropriately, so that they'd stop profiteering and put money back in the business.

One of the reasons billionaires even exist is because we spent the last forty years rejiggering our tax code to allow them to hoard wealth because Art Laffer and his hack disciples convinced Western policymakers that allowing the wealthy to hoard money would someone not result in the wealthy hoarding money, and that it would be a more productive use of capital to let the rich sit on huge piles of cash than to either a) tax it and spend it directly on public services, and/or b) threaten to tax it, forcing the rich to reinvest it or lose it.

then_three_more

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Aldi or Lidl could come in, but they'd be years lining up real estate leases, suppliers (both food and packaging/ops) all while trying to compete is already-saturated markets, against competitors that are vertically integrated (especially LCL/Loblaw) and already have much of the existing base locked up.

Interestingly they're both actually privately owned. So if they wanted to break into the Canadian market they wouldn't have the worry of shareholders getting cold feet in the same way a publicly owned company would.

The way it would probably work is they'd wait until their presences in the USA were large enough that they could supply the Canadian operation cross border. Until they had large enough portfolios to make it worth having a proper network in Canada.

The last attempt was Target, and while they were the architects of their own fate in a lot of ways, even they weren't planning to be profitable for years.

Yeah I would imagine that Aldi and Lidl are barley profitable in the USA yet, and they've both been in that market for over a decade.

If the government was serious about competition, trying to bribe a foreign company with billions of dollars would be a huge waste of money. A better option would be either nationalizing one of the existing chains or taxing their owners appropriately, so that they'd stop profiteering and put money back in the business

Would breaking them up not be an option?

njm1314

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I saw a photo the other day from that Supermarket where they had cut the bottoms off of green onions because they didn't want people being able to regrow them. And frankly I don't know how people didn't immediately burn down the store.

TokenBoomer

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Well that’s dystopian. Having your own garden will soon be against the law.

FuglyDuck

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I’m just going to suggest that, you may want to get heirloom varieties. If you’re going to grow them any how. The heirlooms are much, much, better tasting and probably more nutritious compared to the mass produced varieties where quantity and appearance are the typical priorities.

You can propagate onions by trimming the roots and some of the bulb, but you can also let one or two bolt and go to seed- they’re self-pollinating. (this absolutely affects flavor, so it’s probably best to just compost it.)

As a side note, green onions tolerate living walls quite happily, even indoors. (You can also force them by staggering the germination of seeds, letting them get to harvest at a more regular pace.)

Ive a green house but my brother has an indoor wall, and grows sweet yellow and red onions, carrots, garlic, zucchini and yellow squash, strawberries, salad greens, celery, and a few kinds of potatoes (they don’t let those get huge,)

Blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries… need more space and I’d only recommend black and raspberries if you’re willing to do battle to keep them under control.

(Damn things are constantly trying to take over my green house. Unfortunately… certain people have gotten used to the jam, ice cream topping and fresh berries they provide… )

Dwarf Meyer lemon trees make great house plants too, if you want a large pot.

(This selection meant to warn you what happens when you become a plant-dad or plant-mom…. You’ve been warned.)

Tronn4

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Why does this sound like a bot

FuglyDuck

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Dunno.

I don’t feel like a bot. I just think more people should consider house plants and living walls are a great way to do that.

(And get snacks. They’re awesome.)

Ithi

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I have never encountered that there and it is possible that was just a mistake by an employee.

Fuck Loblaws though, I haven't stopped in any of their stores in about 2 months now. Between their clueless owner, high prices, and stupid "food professor" they deserve to lose as many customers as possible.

shalafi

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I seriously doubt that was the idea. Someone probably decided the onions looked nicer that way. People are so detached from nature, they probably think the roots and specks of dirt are nasty. Besides, how many people you know regrow green onions? Never talked to anyone IRL that does this.

Been meaning to try it, but from the pic you're talking about, I bet you could still grow those. I've shaved 'em off pretty tight and they rooted fine. Been meaning to try cutting them more like the pic and experiment.

And for anyone who hasn't tried it, DO IT. It's so nice to step into the flower garden, chop some tops and have fresh. I grew the same two batches for 7-years, non-stop.

Hobbes_Dent

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In a statement to the BBC, the company added that it plans on opening more discount stores to make affordable food more accessible.

Fucking whoosh.

SturgiesYrFase

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I used to shop at their "affordable" stores. While technically cheaper than their main-line stores, almost everything would be on the verge of expiry, the stuff that wasn't would go bad before the date. Fresh goods were basically halfway to compost.
This was in Vancouver, not a small back of beyond town.
Then I moved to London, England. And literally all the food was less than a quarter of the cost after exchange rate. And the quality....goddamn. Even the really cheap shops here have generally better quality produce than the expensive shops back home. It's ridiculous.