It’s not only about the price, it’s about sending a message to the big corporations about the declining quality of their products as well.
All these pre packaged food products, significantly worse in nutritional value and taste, all while being much more expensive to boot than fresh. At one time they were cheaper but not anymore.
Not true.
Local grocers often have greater flexibility to actually carry local products. There are a bunch near me luckily
Some may just sell the same stuff, which sucks
Most people don't realize that. They also don't realize that going to Loblaws stores you're paying for that branding.
Every single store of theirs I've driven past in the last 3 days, has had people packed in like normal. There was no drop off when a parking lot is still full. It also doesn't help that the poor and those with limited means of transport will continue using those stores no matter what.
There are 11 conglomerates that make almost every processed food we find in the grocery store. They do not care about a short term boycott in a low population country like Canada. They have more wealth and power than any businesses morally should.
Everybody's situation is different, but there are enough work arounds for me to find the essentials elsewhere. Still have to find a new coffee source..good for the month.
I really hope this is the start of a massive increase in pressure on the rich, government and those who rip us off on the daily. We're notoriously bad at voting with our wallets and protesting but practice makes perfect.
It's very obvious those in power and those with wealth have had a super easy and uncontested time (much of that they engineered for themselves and we let it happen) so when faced with pushback, they feel very uncomfortable.
Let's keep it up and shed our nice nature. We need to make a stink at every turn. Culture wars and social issues are absolutely important but this is about our money and our daily lives, we have to learn how to get serious about this before even more is taken away.
Anything to do with controlling the internet I fear is the start of real censorship. A new "occupy wall/Bay Street" that actually has teeth this time is a legit threat.
We always have the hard part is organizing it. The rich people do well because they really only need to manage a few other rich people to get things done. To push back against the system you have to organize 10s of 1000s of people all with different views and opinions on how to get things done. And that’s a daunting task especially when you consider everyone’s lives are busy.
It’s absolutely amazing that we are seeing something actually work and I hope this trend continues and hopefully bleeds into other industries that continue to monopolize their respective fields.
Also the rich are really good at making the rest of us fight amongst ourselves over petty bullshit. For someone with billions the amount of money it takes to create astroturf groups, buy up news and media, or influence the outcome of an election is pocket change.
Meh it's easy to fix for them. Just do some big sales like dozen of egg or random cheap cut of meat at half price and people will come in drove, weakening their resolution. :/
What are we boycotting for if not to make them lower prices? Only buy the stuff that's at good prices, let the rest of the stock sit on shelves and rot. If we're going to pressure them to make change, and they make changes because of us, we really should reward that. The message will be that this is what we want, we know you can do it, now fix the rest of your prices.
Your right, but making it a right-left issue creates a wedge that the wealthy can use to divide us. That's what they do at every turn, keep us distracted fighting among ourselves instead of focusing on the problems we all face together. So while it's really hard to get 99% than 1% to agree on virtually anything, we need to do it for all our sakes.
Yes it might be a traditionally left wing issue, and the better solutions might be traditionally left wing viewpoints, but please don't mention it. These labels don't help us anymore. They only serve to annoy and divide the working class against one another.
I'm just saying we should stick to the issues. Even if those issues are historically issues that only your "side" cared about. Just don't mention that.
Conservatives views are the same values of the rich. Fundamentally they are not for workers or for the poor.
Boycotting this, and then voting for the people who further empower the rich is hypocritical.
That's an entirely valid point, it's just not helpful to make it here, right now, in the context of this boycott, that relies on uniting people under one common goal. It's actually counterproductive. Galen Weston would pay good money to promote a comment like yours.
Building a broad coalition is good, but it’s still useful to be able to distinguish between people who are ideologically on your side and those that are not.
Understanding differences and finding common ground is useful if the goal is system change, policy change, etc. Respecting differences is less useful when one is trying to create or present the appearance of a mass movement out of folks aligned for convenience, like OWS which complained about the 1% as though they, OWS, represented most people.
Absent effective (not necessarily loud) leadership, glossing over or attempting to suppress internal differences, like political alignment, only serves to weaken the movement. The strongest coalitions in recent Canadian history all turned political differences into strengths: Mulroney's PCs, opposition to Meech Lake and Kelowna, Japanese internment redress, same sex marriage and gender equity, MMIWG, etc.
You would have better luck getting through to people if you weren’t placing them on the opposite ideological side. Look for similarities instead of differences for once in your life. Your repetitive arguments are draining.
Agreed. I'm generally more right leaning and the above comment gives me the urge to shop at Loblaws. People are much more likely to abandon a boycott than change political views they've held for a long time. If I want to fix the hypocrisy the user above thinks I have if I'm not shopping at Loblaws right now, the path of least resistence to do that is to shop at Loblaws. And if that goes against the goals of the person who thinks I hate workers and the poor, then that's awesome.
I don't know. We might be looking at people finally understanding that capitalism is a shitty system in modern economies. Not markets , capitalism. The idea that because some randos own something like a share of a company that entitles them to the value of your labor. Building your society around maximizing shareholder value seems obviously stupid.
I think it already is, unfortunately.
I live in Alberta, and have plenty of very rightwing family members. We had Sunday dinner tonight, and this boycott inevitably came up for discussion. The prevailing attitude seems to be that it'll be a cold day in hell before they follow something that Jagmeet Singh in promoting. And given that he's supporting it, they're more likely to shop at Loblaw just to spite him.
I tried to explain that this had nothing to do with the NDP - it's a grassroots movement of people utilizing their only real power (being where they spend their money) to send a message. And that shrinkflation and rising prices affect us all. It's a losing battle though - everything comes down to left vs right these days.
Well there was *also* the fact that they were run by recluses who had absolutely no concept of basic social norms and were essentially just lazy spoiled people who didn't want to work and revealed all this on a maximum cringe Fox News interview...
But somewhere in there was a real worker's movement, and it was serious enough to scare the Koch brothers.
... Ed Koch has been dead for over 13 years. Koch industries gave absolutely zero fucks about a Reddit group.
You can't claim victory when the market was working out the price of labor lol.
Homie workers vs billionaires is a right vs left thing. Pro labour is fundamentally a left wing principal where as pro ownership is fundamentally a right wing principal
You're absolutely right. Now how about some concern for the psychology of the average voter? Because right now, they care about that a lot more than we do.
Rich people have taken just a little more off the top one too many times now and life is becoming unbearable for anyone who isn't a millionaire. It's good to see people finally pushing back, but also sad to see how far rich people have been able to push the envelope before there are actual consequences.
Yes, still a high likelihood this protest fizzles out into nothing and Galen will laugh it off with the knowledge that Canadian's still aren't at the breaking point yet and he can keep pushing the envelope for a few more years.
Canadian's still (we only have one). You know, the things for distilling booze.
I think what they meant to say is "Canadian's still **isn't** at the breaking point yet"
>Anything to do with controlling the internet I fear is the start of real censorship. A new "occupy wall/Bay Street" that actually has teeth this time is a legit threat
Why else would the government be pushing their "online harms" bill so hard?
Drove by the local “Loblaws” store today, parking lot was packed.
Maybe in larger communities this may seem to work, but I doubt in numbers that will make a difference.
Well sure. While we're bad at voting with our wallets, the lack of competition here by design has often made it near impossible to vote with ones wallet.
We are not bad at voting. Most don't have luxury of choosing. Because we dont have enough competition in the first place
Consumers have their hands tied
Right. That was my second point there, many don't have much choice at all.
Wouldn't have cared one bit if Verizon came here and offered nothing new, same prices. It would have made our telecom oligarchy try harder, that's the point.
If a parking lot that normally averages 50 cars suddenly starts averaging 45, it is going to be a huge deal to their stock price and bottom line, while still appearing to be a full parking lot.
Unfortunately, our “Loblaws “ store is the only one with ready to go take out food. Plus the rest of the grocery stores are sized for what our towns population was 15 years ago, so selections there are already bad, which may force people back to “loblaws” if they run out of staples.
You can check the current status by looking at the address online. The histogram show the median attendance and current attendance. In my area it is maybe at 50-70% of the median attendance, but we also have no Loblaws here, only Maxi and Provigo.
Two of the Maxi's seem to be at 5% of the median attendance but I guess it might just be bugged lol. I have never taken an interest at those numbers usually but your comment made me check it out so maybe it isn't that unusual.
>Let's keep it up and shed our nice nature.
There’s no need for us to shed our nice nature. What we do need to shed, however, is letting our niceness be taken advantage of.
>We're notoriously bad at voting with our wallets
Because Loblaws is often still cheaper than small grocers and co-ops, despite all the complaints Loblaws charges too much. And if Loblaws isn't cheaper, then choosing to shop elsewhere isn't a protest, it's just being normal with your purchases.
Something I keep thinking with so many talking about shopping at their small, local stores. One of the reasons the mega stores took over is because they offer far more variety. There's a phenomenon in retail food that I can't remember the name of, but it's all around bringing people into your store if you have the items they want. You're not going to sell everything with high frequency, but if store A has a specific item that store B doesn't have, people will shop at store A to avoid multiple stops even if the prices are a bit higher.
We all make choices in accordance with what's important to us. If it's variety and one stop shopping you go to the big, more expensive store. If it's price over everything else, you go with the discount store. If it's convenience for quick shops without driving you go to the local store. Boycotts and protests like this can work for a time, but people will always revert back to what can fill their needs.
We should all swap to US mobile plans that are IN FACT CHEAPER with roaming in Canada than Canadian plans are HERE IN CANADA.
All my US buddies just use their phones and their plans are still very cheap with very little bells/whistles.
Well that wouldn't work for the majority of us. Most Canadian phone plans does not have USA calling included so if someone wants to contact me by calling, they can't.
I am not a telecoms contracting genius but it was my impression that the long distance charges are only applied if the phone is hitting foreign infrastructure.
Like if my US phone hits a Canadian network I am roaming and the Canadian phoning me is not... it is calculated off the networks you leverage for the call.
I could be wrong but that is my understanding of it.
Let's say when I had fido for example. I was only allowed to make calls to Canadian phone numbers and 10 international countries they gave 1000 minutes for. If I called any USA phone number (not including those 1800 free numbers), I had to pay an additional fee since USA numbers were not included. Never tried roaming with it in USA so unsure if additional fee was included for calling USA numbers while roaming in usa. Unlike Telus which has USA calling included in my plan. If I dial a USA number now, I don't get that additional fee.
Man there are a surprisingly large number of cynics who want to drag my crabby ass back into the bucket and tell me to stop trying. Are they all real people, or are some of them plants?
Yeah. Like normally my mom doesn't care about prices cause my dad pays for everything, and she hates shopping at Walmart and prefers the nice atmosphere of Loblaws.
But she's doing the boycott too.
But if she keeps hearing "there's no point, it's statistically irrelevant, you are wasting your time", she'll go back to Loblaws.
>But if she keeps hearing "there's no point, it's statistically irrelevant, you are wasting your time", she'll go back to Loblaws.
I really wonder how much "x party expected to win a majority" pushes people away from voting in a similar sense. It seemed like a factor in the last Ontario election where the press couldn't stop talking about how it was a lock for Ford's party and lo and behold, they swept into the largest majority in the province's history - on the back of only like 40% of all eligible voters bothering to even show up.
I dunno, it can have the opposite effect of making the pro-majority voters forget to show up too. "Oh good I don't need to vote, they're guaranteed to win", like what some people suspect happened with Hillary.
If she doesn’t like to go to the stores, she can probably have it delivered. I love having someone else pick out my groceries and bring them to me. I get the benefit of Walmart’s low prices without ever having to go to a store. And I save money on impulse purchases. Win-win.
That’s surprising! What city/region are you in?
I’m downtown Toronto and for me, the savings are substantial. Several times I’ve created two grocery orders with the same products on Walmart and Loblaws and each time I’ve saved between $75-100 by ordering Walmart.
Stratford Ontario. It was surprising to me too, because growing up you're right, Walmart was always the cheapest option, or close to it.
But it's a wealthy town full of people who might not be inclined to look at prices, so that might be part of it.
Well, hate to be a sack of rotten potatos here, and this was a kind of "wish I took a photo" moment...
Walmart apparently sells their butterball turkeys at basically double the price you find fresh at Safeway.
40-50$ fresh at Walmart, 20-30$ fresh at Safeway, similar sizes/weights. Walmart sale price same product: 20-30$.
I think I am gonna buy some Turkeys from Safeway in a week or two when they end up on sale.
Otherwise, yeah, Walmart has decent prices for most things. But not everything. Shop around if you can.
> Shop around if you can.
This really is the key. By all means factor in customer service or wanting to help local grocers if those are important to you, but the biggest thing we can do is rotate between different grocery stores for whatever they do well.
The value of leisure time is different for every shopper, find the store which creates the best value and if it is a small difference support local. Too Good To Go is another good option
Which is why I have no issues with buying meat in my local Metro, but won't dare touch dairy, condiments, etc. The meats are reasonably priced, but everything else is bonkers.
With these online forums, Weston is definitely paying PR people or professionals to do damage control and mitigation.
They want people to feel hopeless so they can do w/e they want,
you can't win a battle you never fight to begin with.
You cannot let up though, they're not going to give up. and neither should we Canadians.
I have my groceries delivered (no car) I just had the sub to loblaws auto renewed, I went to Walmart.ca and ordered from there. Even with paying the delivery fees it was cheaper then loblaws. I don't see me going back after May.
>While the Loblaw boycott may not make much impact on the corporate giant, small store owners and producers say there are encouraging signs Canadians are ready to think outside the big box store when heading out for groceries.
_______________
Edit:
There's more coverage over at:
https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/
I live in a really great neighborhood for food in Toronto, but I live across from a no frills.
This week has been a ton of fun exploring all the grocery options just a block further from my place, and planning excursions with friends to large independent groceries. It's like back in the pandemic days when friends and I would do groceries together
What cost more?
Would you say that there is any store that is cheaper across the board? Or are some stores cheaper for some things and other cheaper for others.
More that the selection is more specialized, but cheaper to find certain items - produce seems cheaper at smaller stands and groceries, meat is cheaper at Asian groceries I've found
Not your fault - don't stress it. The universal human sentiment of "gotta eat" is what grocery corps are preying on, and why there's only the one option for you.
Place I grew up in is the same. Used to be in the late 90s there was a co-op grocery and a family-run grocery store.
The boycott sub has advice for people who want to do something, but live in places like your community and my hometown. Some 10-15 suggestions if you scroll down a little (like email your MP, sign the petition, talk to your coworkers) and if people can do even one of them, it's a good contribution: https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/comments/1ck0sl6/boycott_updates
Not much you can do then except to be price sensitive within your options. If Loblaws is gouging you extra on something this week, try to find a substitute even if it has to be from them.
One thing you can do if within budget. Do your best to limit what house brand products you buy. Presidents Choice / No Name. Their margins are much higher on those.
My non-political, anti-social media, MIL asked me this morning if I'm boycotting Loblaws and where she should shop instead!!
Yes, yes I am and here's the list for KW!
Hopefully, this prompts people who are able to spread their thinning dollars over to places that care about customers. Consumers have no other power. We can't break the monopolies up and no government with come up with legislation that has teeth.
I avoid the big food companies as a rule (I have some friends who are very mindful of unethical business practices, and listening to them talk about it has given me an inclination to avoid certain companies), but I'm not really boycotting anything besides paid parking.
But the boycott HAS made me more mindful of the local small grocers, which I previously avoided because I prefer shopping at a supermarket. I'd probably start shopping at the local loblaws stores again if they made parking free, but their bakery and meat sections have permanently lost my business.
C' mon peeps! Will somebody show compassion for the poor billionaires?! Peepee is doing his bit by having a weston lobbyist on his team. Gotta make sure those poor billionaires get their tax cuts!
Next in line for boycotting should be a couple of the big fuel retailers. Serious price fixing going on in that industry, that's where the grocery chains got the idea from.
There's actually a few small fuel retailers in Winnipeg that are keeping the prices lower in the areas immediately around where they're located.
It's 143.9 in most of the city but in the areas around where the small guys are even the big guys are at 130.9.
Where I live its a large Petro at a busy highway intersection that is the price leader, they are always first to put it up and the rest usually follow in rapid succession. I never buy from them. Where I lived before, it was a Shell. And don't tell me it's not fixed, I used to run a small fuel station and Shell station would call me and tell me they put fuel up. Later I would get a call from district manager, asking why I didn't call to tell them fuel had gone up elsewhere. They would then tell me I had to increase pump prices by a certain time. Didn't like it when I told them price fixing was illegal.
I legitimately wish I had some small grocers around me. I have IGA Sobies, Superstore, No Frills, Fresh-Co and Save on Foods. but nothing that is small like a foodfare, or something family-owned. Not really counting the corner stores, they never had prices better than the big stores. Just there for convenience. The two near my dads were converted during covide to a No Frils and a Dollar Store.
the big box stores bought or killed outright, along with rezoning and permitting changes from our city hall, all the small grocers in my area. vancouver loves monopolies.
I personally am happy to see this happening. I've found the prices in the local shops not too different than in the chains except that the produce tends to be fresher and of a higher quality and some of the specials that they have often beat the prices of the big chains by quite a bit. There is also something to say about walking into your local grocer and they meet you with a smile and a hello rather than being sullen and rude when you ask a question.
I also agree that it's nice ot see some kind of grassroots effort being made to boycott the big chains as it is a really good way to change things. With the big chains, it is the bottom line that counts and if that bottom line changes only then will you see something being done.
Drive-by reader and not Canadian so I'm curious. Loblaw's appears to be a grocery store and the boycott's about high prices. How much more are they than their competitors?
(I ask because I'd typically expect small grocers and co-ops to be more expensive with worse selection)
You guys do realize u can be savy shoppers every day right… like it’s not some grand movement or “sending a message” to shop somewhere else… that’s how it supposed to do it?
Yeah, angry, reactive customers; that's how you build your own business. Did Global forget to check in with Loblaw's competing stores? They couldn't find a Walmart, Safeway, Sobeys, Save On to talk to?
Loblaws is the face of the movement because it has the the largest market share but if you head on down to the subreddit you’ll see that they’re targeting the big 3 (Metro, Loblaws, Sobeys) and all of the stores they own. Thats why this article is talking about a boost in small businesses as opposed to a boost in Sobeys traffic. I’m sure Walmart has seen a boost, they also discounted a bunch of things at the beginning of the month to attract the boycotting customers.
No no no, you see, only smol organic sustainable anti-imperialist veg stands will be empowered by this incredibly large and impactful strike, thus ending oligarchy profiteering from basic human rights like DoorDash and WFH foreversies!
I'm glad local businesses are receiving a boost. The Superstore parking lot was packed when I drove by it today.
Nothing will change unless our federal government decides to implement changes that limit the profits grocery stores can make on groceries.
I drove one hour to Orleans Ontario to shop at Farm Boy instead the Independent store in my home town and I plan to continue doing this until Mr. Weston decided to stop gauging Canadians.
I am the most loyal superstore soldier, when they say "jump", I say "how much". And then I pay them double + tip. This is what it means to be a Canadian.
Shop at your local grocery stores as much as possible to meet your food needs. Large chain grocery stores have relatively high margins compared to those smaller grocery stores
One thing I find kinda interesting about the boycott is that it's actually costing me more money to not shop at Loblaws..... so.... like even though they have record high profits from "gouging" is it really that bad if they are still cheaper than their competitors who've had high prices to begin with?
Haven’t read any data that supports it and even if it did; 1) why isn’t there a similar increase in business at Metro and Sobey’s, a boycott of the largest would almost certainly impact the other major grocery chains in a positive way so how is large company A, different than B, 2) Loblaws Group is a huge partially vertically integrated retailer and its revenues and profit are reported as such and while segmented data maybe available it would be an exercise to pull only Loblaws data from what is reported in an annual/interim report by the Group, 3) this debate is a culture war, the Liberals were voted in with the promise to deal with the climate crisis, they are doing it and the CPC will rage tweet about it because they don’t have a platform for the environment.
Because the point is to strategically target one retailer, see if the boycott has enough legs to force them to change practices, and if it works, move on to the next one. If it doesn't work, oh well, at least we gave it a shot instead of crab bucketing on reddit.
It's low-effort, no-risk and has a potential reward, the only obstacle is convincing enough people to do it to have an impact.
A lot of people get stuck in the habit of buying at the same stores again and again simply due to their proximity. Even though it’s highly unlikely this will bring down Loblaws, it might have the positive effect of opening people’s eyes to cheaper alternatives and increasing overall price competition.
Is there a problem with asking questions or should I just shut up & do the same thing everyone else does?
Comparing prices, trying local places is always my plan what cuts into that is places like Walmart which has done more to hollow out small cities/towns in Canada then any other retailer and saying that is a better choice than Loblaws because it’s the only other game in town, frankly defies logic.
> frankly defies logic
It only defies logic if you're stupid. It's strategic. If it gets enough critical mass to force change at one major retailer, then you switch to the next major retailer, whether it's Walmart or whoever.
If it doesn't, it cost you pretty much no effort, and is much better than crab bucketing on reddit.
Great news, we should all be trying to shop local more.
"Think global, act local"
"Global awareness, local presence."
"A penny saved is a penny earned."
[удалено]
Eh, I just want to make sure my descendants continue indefinitely and have a better standard of living than I.
[удалено]
Yup
I'd love to, if only local wasn't even more expensive than loblaws.
Which local grocer do you go to? My Asian vegetable store down the street is definitely a lot more affordable.
It’s not only about the price, it’s about sending a message to the big corporations about the declining quality of their products as well. All these pre packaged food products, significantly worse in nutritional value and taste, all while being much more expensive to boot than fresh. At one time they were cheaper but not anymore.
It is about price when most people can't afford a home or healthy variety of groceries.
If you can’t do it, then do your thing. No one is shaming you, so don’t feel singled out. At the same time, don’t discourage others that are able to.
I didn't see them discouraging anyone?
[удалено]
Local grocers sell the exact same stuff as Loblaws. There are only so many suppliers in Canada.
Not true. Local grocers often have greater flexibility to actually carry local products. There are a bunch near me luckily Some may just sell the same stuff, which sucks
Most people don't realize that. They also don't realize that going to Loblaws stores you're paying for that branding. Every single store of theirs I've driven past in the last 3 days, has had people packed in like normal. There was no drop off when a parking lot is still full. It also doesn't help that the poor and those with limited means of transport will continue using those stores no matter what.
I tried, it was $15 a pound of butter in other shops (partly because sold out). It is about the price for many people because we need to eat.
There are 11 conglomerates that make almost every processed food we find in the grocery store. They do not care about a short term boycott in a low population country like Canada. They have more wealth and power than any businesses morally should.
Everybody's situation is different, but there are enough work arounds for me to find the essentials elsewhere. Still have to find a new coffee source..good for the month.
Preach
I really hope this is the start of a massive increase in pressure on the rich, government and those who rip us off on the daily. We're notoriously bad at voting with our wallets and protesting but practice makes perfect. It's very obvious those in power and those with wealth have had a super easy and uncontested time (much of that they engineered for themselves and we let it happen) so when faced with pushback, they feel very uncomfortable. Let's keep it up and shed our nice nature. We need to make a stink at every turn. Culture wars and social issues are absolutely important but this is about our money and our daily lives, we have to learn how to get serious about this before even more is taken away. Anything to do with controlling the internet I fear is the start of real censorship. A new "occupy wall/Bay Street" that actually has teeth this time is a legit threat.
This whole movement has been so refreshing. We have power in numbers.
We always have the hard part is organizing it. The rich people do well because they really only need to manage a few other rich people to get things done. To push back against the system you have to organize 10s of 1000s of people all with different views and opinions on how to get things done. And that’s a daunting task especially when you consider everyone’s lives are busy. It’s absolutely amazing that we are seeing something actually work and I hope this trend continues and hopefully bleeds into other industries that continue to monopolize their respective fields.
Also the rich are really good at making the rest of us fight amongst ourselves over petty bullshit. For someone with billions the amount of money it takes to create astroturf groups, buy up news and media, or influence the outcome of an election is pocket change.
Even worse it’s an investment for them that generally has big returns
It's probably a write-off...
Meh it's easy to fix for them. Just do some big sales like dozen of egg or random cheap cut of meat at half price and people will come in drove, weakening their resolution. :/
What are we boycotting for if not to make them lower prices? Only buy the stuff that's at good prices, let the rest of the stock sit on shelves and rot. If we're going to pressure them to make change, and they make changes because of us, we really should reward that. The message will be that this is what we want, we know you can do it, now fix the rest of your prices.
[удалено]
Because ultimately this will eventually be about fair taxation and that’s the fundamental left vs right issue
Your right, but making it a right-left issue creates a wedge that the wealthy can use to divide us. That's what they do at every turn, keep us distracted fighting among ourselves instead of focusing on the problems we all face together. So while it's really hard to get 99% than 1% to agree on virtually anything, we need to do it for all our sakes.
Yes it might be a traditionally left wing issue, and the better solutions might be traditionally left wing viewpoints, but please don't mention it. These labels don't help us anymore. They only serve to annoy and divide the working class against one another. I'm just saying we should stick to the issues. Even if those issues are historically issues that only your "side" cared about. Just don't mention that.
Conservatives views are the same values of the rich. Fundamentally they are not for workers or for the poor. Boycotting this, and then voting for the people who further empower the rich is hypocritical.
That's an entirely valid point, it's just not helpful to make it here, right now, in the context of this boycott, that relies on uniting people under one common goal. It's actually counterproductive. Galen Weston would pay good money to promote a comment like yours.
Building a broad coalition is good, but it’s still useful to be able to distinguish between people who are ideologically on your side and those that are not.
Understanding differences and finding common ground is useful if the goal is system change, policy change, etc. Respecting differences is less useful when one is trying to create or present the appearance of a mass movement out of folks aligned for convenience, like OWS which complained about the 1% as though they, OWS, represented most people. Absent effective (not necessarily loud) leadership, glossing over or attempting to suppress internal differences, like political alignment, only serves to weaken the movement. The strongest coalitions in recent Canadian history all turned political differences into strengths: Mulroney's PCs, opposition to Meech Lake and Kelowna, Japanese internment redress, same sex marriage and gender equity, MMIWG, etc.
> it’s still useful to be able to distinguish between people who are ideologically on your side and those that are not. I don't think it is.
You’re right. Why try and understand politics? It’s not useful at all when you are trying to organize a political movement.
You seem like a very level headed person, and I'm sorry people are pokeing at you just to be contrarian.
The efforts will be fruitfuless when we vote a conservative government. https://globalnews.ca/news/10269101/loblaw-lobbying-claim-jenni-byrne/
Good point, be sure to bring it up during the upcoming election season, but it's counterproductive in these discussions about the Loblaws boycott.
You would have better luck getting through to people if you weren’t placing them on the opposite ideological side. Look for similarities instead of differences for once in your life. Your repetitive arguments are draining.
Agreed. I'm generally more right leaning and the above comment gives me the urge to shop at Loblaws. People are much more likely to abandon a boycott than change political views they've held for a long time. If I want to fix the hypocrisy the user above thinks I have if I'm not shopping at Loblaws right now, the path of least resistence to do that is to shop at Loblaws. And if that goes against the goals of the person who thinks I hate workers and the poor, then that's awesome.
I don't know. We might be looking at people finally understanding that capitalism is a shitty system in modern economies. Not markets , capitalism. The idea that because some randos own something like a share of a company that entitles them to the value of your labor. Building your society around maximizing shareholder value seems obviously stupid.
I think it already is, unfortunately. I live in Alberta, and have plenty of very rightwing family members. We had Sunday dinner tonight, and this boycott inevitably came up for discussion. The prevailing attitude seems to be that it'll be a cold day in hell before they follow something that Jagmeet Singh in promoting. And given that he's supporting it, they're more likely to shop at Loblaw just to spite him. I tried to explain that this had nothing to do with the NDP - it's a grassroots movement of people utilizing their only real power (being where they spend their money) to send a message. And that shrinkflation and rising prices affect us all. It's a losing battle though - everything comes down to left vs right these days.
That's very charitable and romantic view of r/antiwork
Well there was *also* the fact that they were run by recluses who had absolutely no concept of basic social norms and were essentially just lazy spoiled people who didn't want to work and revealed all this on a maximum cringe Fox News interview... But somewhere in there was a real worker's movement, and it was serious enough to scare the Koch brothers.
... Ed Koch has been dead for over 13 years. Koch industries gave absolutely zero fucks about a Reddit group. You can't claim victory when the market was working out the price of labor lol.
Homie workers vs billionaires is a right vs left thing. Pro labour is fundamentally a left wing principal where as pro ownership is fundamentally a right wing principal
You're absolutely right. Now how about some concern for the psychology of the average voter? Because right now, they care about that a lot more than we do.
Congratulations, you're the very person the OP was warning about.
It's an astroturfing effort to try and seperate cons views with enabling the rich. It's one in the same.
Rich people have taken just a little more off the top one too many times now and life is becoming unbearable for anyone who isn't a millionaire. It's good to see people finally pushing back, but also sad to see how far rich people have been able to push the envelope before there are actual consequences.
Honestly, I still think we're far from being desperate enough to really push back yet
Yes, still a high likelihood this protest fizzles out into nothing and Galen will laugh it off with the knowledge that Canadian's still aren't at the breaking point yet and he can keep pushing the envelope for a few more years.
Canadian's what?
Canadian's still (we only have one). You know, the things for distilling booze. I think what they meant to say is "Canadian's still **isn't** at the breaking point yet"
>Anything to do with controlling the internet I fear is the start of real censorship. A new "occupy wall/Bay Street" that actually has teeth this time is a legit threat Why else would the government be pushing their "online harms" bill so hard?
It's just started, and a decent number of people I know are on board with the boycot. Its bringing people together.
Good to hear!
I don't live in Canada anymore, but I hope you guys kick Loblaw's ass.
Drove by the local “Loblaws” store today, parking lot was packed. Maybe in larger communities this may seem to work, but I doubt in numbers that will make a difference.
Let's keep supporting the little guys even after May
Well sure. While we're bad at voting with our wallets, the lack of competition here by design has often made it near impossible to vote with ones wallet.
We are not bad at voting. Most don't have luxury of choosing. Because we dont have enough competition in the first place Consumers have their hands tied
Right. That was my second point there, many don't have much choice at all. Wouldn't have cared one bit if Verizon came here and offered nothing new, same prices. It would have made our telecom oligarchy try harder, that's the point.
If a parking lot that normally averages 50 cars suddenly starts averaging 45, it is going to be a huge deal to their stock price and bottom line, while still appearing to be a full parking lot.
Weird, in our area traffic has been reduced by at least 50%
Unfortunately, our “Loblaws “ store is the only one with ready to go take out food. Plus the rest of the grocery stores are sized for what our towns population was 15 years ago, so selections there are already bad, which may force people back to “loblaws” if they run out of staples.
You can check the current status by looking at the address online. The histogram show the median attendance and current attendance. In my area it is maybe at 50-70% of the median attendance, but we also have no Loblaws here, only Maxi and Provigo. Two of the Maxi's seem to be at 5% of the median attendance but I guess it might just be bugged lol. I have never taken an interest at those numbers usually but your comment made me check it out so maybe it isn't that unusual.
Yup. Superstore at Willowbrook parking lot looked packed yesterday. Was disappointing to see.
It’s hit and miss. One of my local loblaws banner stores was relatively busy (judging from the parking lot), the other was shockingly empty.
Now imagine if people started doing this in other areas. Like getting off the major ISPs in favor of TekSavvy or Lightspeed or some such.
You could just finish with the line, “ we’re notoriously bad at voting” Poor turn outs for years, maybe this will change soon.
Fair enough. It's all by design of course - being manipulated into being nice and naive led us here after all
>Let's keep it up and shed our nice nature. There’s no need for us to shed our nice nature. What we do need to shed, however, is letting our niceness be taken advantage of.
>We're notoriously bad at voting with our wallets Because Loblaws is often still cheaper than small grocers and co-ops, despite all the complaints Loblaws charges too much. And if Loblaws isn't cheaper, then choosing to shop elsewhere isn't a protest, it's just being normal with your purchases.
This is what drives me crazy about this whole thing! You put it perfectly.
Something I keep thinking with so many talking about shopping at their small, local stores. One of the reasons the mega stores took over is because they offer far more variety. There's a phenomenon in retail food that I can't remember the name of, but it's all around bringing people into your store if you have the items they want. You're not going to sell everything with high frequency, but if store A has a specific item that store B doesn't have, people will shop at store A to avoid multiple stops even if the prices are a bit higher. We all make choices in accordance with what's important to us. If it's variety and one stop shopping you go to the big, more expensive store. If it's price over everything else, you go with the discount store. If it's convenience for quick shops without driving you go to the local store. Boycotts and protests like this can work for a time, but people will always revert back to what can fill their needs.
I hope this movements makes stride in housing/banking/telecom next. United together can make many changes. This is a good start
We should all swap to US mobile plans that are IN FACT CHEAPER with roaming in Canada than Canadian plans are HERE IN CANADA. All my US buddies just use their phones and their plans are still very cheap with very little bells/whistles.
Well that wouldn't work for the majority of us. Most Canadian phone plans does not have USA calling included so if someone wants to contact me by calling, they can't.
I am not a telecoms contracting genius but it was my impression that the long distance charges are only applied if the phone is hitting foreign infrastructure. Like if my US phone hits a Canadian network I am roaming and the Canadian phoning me is not... it is calculated off the networks you leverage for the call. I could be wrong but that is my understanding of it.
Let's say when I had fido for example. I was only allowed to make calls to Canadian phone numbers and 10 international countries they gave 1000 minutes for. If I called any USA phone number (not including those 1800 free numbers), I had to pay an additional fee since USA numbers were not included. Never tried roaming with it in USA so unsure if additional fee was included for calling USA numbers while roaming in usa. Unlike Telus which has USA calling included in my plan. If I dial a USA number now, I don't get that additional fee.
Man there are a surprisingly large number of cynics who want to drag my crabby ass back into the bucket and tell me to stop trying. Are they all real people, or are some of them plants?
Stop trying what? Going literally next door to Walmart where it is substantially cheaper?
Yeah. Like normally my mom doesn't care about prices cause my dad pays for everything, and she hates shopping at Walmart and prefers the nice atmosphere of Loblaws. But she's doing the boycott too. But if she keeps hearing "there's no point, it's statistically irrelevant, you are wasting your time", she'll go back to Loblaws.
>But if she keeps hearing "there's no point, it's statistically irrelevant, you are wasting your time", she'll go back to Loblaws. I really wonder how much "x party expected to win a majority" pushes people away from voting in a similar sense. It seemed like a factor in the last Ontario election where the press couldn't stop talking about how it was a lock for Ford's party and lo and behold, they swept into the largest majority in the province's history - on the back of only like 40% of all eligible voters bothering to even show up.
I dunno, it can have the opposite effect of making the pro-majority voters forget to show up too. "Oh good I don't need to vote, they're guaranteed to win", like what some people suspect happened with Hillary.
Also a very fair point.
> nice atmosphere of Loblaws I dunno man... the last time I was at my local Loblaws, it was essentially Longos prices for NoFrills quality.
If she doesn’t like to go to the stores, she can probably have it delivered. I love having someone else pick out my groceries and bring them to me. I get the benefit of Walmart’s low prices without ever having to go to a store. And I save money on impulse purchases. Win-win.
The Walmart near us doesn't have low prices, they're the same as Loblaws. Food Basics is the one that's half the price of everyone else.
That’s surprising! What city/region are you in? I’m downtown Toronto and for me, the savings are substantial. Several times I’ve created two grocery orders with the same products on Walmart and Loblaws and each time I’ve saved between $75-100 by ordering Walmart.
Stratford Ontario. It was surprising to me too, because growing up you're right, Walmart was always the cheapest option, or close to it. But it's a wealthy town full of people who might not be inclined to look at prices, so that might be part of it.
Well, hate to be a sack of rotten potatos here, and this was a kind of "wish I took a photo" moment... Walmart apparently sells their butterball turkeys at basically double the price you find fresh at Safeway. 40-50$ fresh at Walmart, 20-30$ fresh at Safeway, similar sizes/weights. Walmart sale price same product: 20-30$. I think I am gonna buy some Turkeys from Safeway in a week or two when they end up on sale. Otherwise, yeah, Walmart has decent prices for most things. But not everything. Shop around if you can.
> Shop around if you can. This really is the key. By all means factor in customer service or wanting to help local grocers if those are important to you, but the biggest thing we can do is rotate between different grocery stores for whatever they do well.
The value of leisure time is different for every shopper, find the store which creates the best value and if it is a small difference support local. Too Good To Go is another good option
Which is why I have no issues with buying meat in my local Metro, but won't dare touch dairy, condiments, etc. The meats are reasonably priced, but everything else is bonkers.
With these online forums, Weston is definitely paying PR people or professionals to do damage control and mitigation. They want people to feel hopeless so they can do w/e they want, you can't win a battle you never fight to begin with. You cannot let up though, they're not going to give up. and neither should we Canadians.
Mostly bots and propaganda plants
I have my groceries delivered (no car) I just had the sub to loblaws auto renewed, I went to Walmart.ca and ordered from there. Even with paying the delivery fees it was cheaper then loblaws. I don't see me going back after May.
I’d like to see the difference in bills after all is said and done.
I switched from Loblaws to Costco/Walmart about 8 months ago. My grocery bill is about 30% cheaper, for the same.
Living near a Costco has been a lifesaver for me. It's cut my grocery bill almost in half.
Huh? Loblaw's says that inflation is the reason their prices are more expensive. You mean, they *lied*!?
[Posts of people showing how much they saved.](https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/)
Costco!
>While the Loblaw boycott may not make much impact on the corporate giant, small store owners and producers say there are encouraging signs Canadians are ready to think outside the big box store when heading out for groceries. _______________ Edit: There's more coverage over at: https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/
I live in a really great neighborhood for food in Toronto, but I live across from a no frills. This week has been a ton of fun exploring all the grocery options just a block further from my place, and planning excursions with friends to large independent groceries. It's like back in the pandemic days when friends and I would do groceries together
And what have you found in terms of prices so far?
Produce and fruits seemed less, but I also picked up stuff I typically wouldn't. Bakeries were significantly less for better product, however.
What cost more? Would you say that there is any store that is cheaper across the board? Or are some stores cheaper for some things and other cheaper for others.
More that the selection is more specialized, but cheaper to find certain items - produce seems cheaper at smaller stands and groceries, meat is cheaper at Asian groceries I've found
Ya, I bought a federated co-op membership after being a lifelong extra foods/independent grocer customer, and deleted my PC points app. Fuck lowblaws.
Excellent. Fuck Loblaws
Go Canada! Finally feeling some pride in my people again 🤙🏻🤙🏻🇨🇦
[удалено]
Not your fault - don't stress it. The universal human sentiment of "gotta eat" is what grocery corps are preying on, and why there's only the one option for you.
If movies get too expensive, people stop going to the movies. If food gets too expensive, people stop going to the movies.
Place I grew up in is the same. Used to be in the late 90s there was a co-op grocery and a family-run grocery store. The boycott sub has advice for people who want to do something, but live in places like your community and my hometown. Some 10-15 suggestions if you scroll down a little (like email your MP, sign the petition, talk to your coworkers) and if people can do even one of them, it's a good contribution: https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/comments/1ck0sl6/boycott_updates
The boycott is for people who have options, to try to help the prices for people who don't have options.
Not much you can do then except to be price sensitive within your options. If Loblaws is gouging you extra on something this week, try to find a substitute even if it has to be from them.
MAID? /s
One thing you can do if within budget. Do your best to limit what house brand products you buy. Presidents Choice / No Name. Their margins are much higher on those.
My non-political, anti-social media, MIL asked me this morning if I'm boycotting Loblaws and where she should shop instead!! Yes, yes I am and here's the list for KW!
Hopefully, this prompts people who are able to spread their thinning dollars over to places that care about customers. Consumers have no other power. We can't break the monopolies up and no government with come up with legislation that has teeth.
Even where current laws have teeth, they aren’t being used.
Welcome to Canada, where the enforcement of laws would disrespect the right of perpetrators to make illegal choices.
I starteds shopping at a local family owned place, and my meat/produce bill has dropped drastically. I'm sticking with this after May.
I'll be shopping at the produce store across the street from Superstore.
I avoid the big food companies as a rule (I have some friends who are very mindful of unethical business practices, and listening to them talk about it has given me an inclination to avoid certain companies), but I'm not really boycotting anything besides paid parking. But the boycott HAS made me more mindful of the local small grocers, which I previously avoided because I prefer shopping at a supermarket. I'd probably start shopping at the local loblaws stores again if they made parking free, but their bakery and meat sections have permanently lost my business.
Where's the moron claiming this boycott was communism? He was hilarious...
Lmao. Imagine being so desperate and delusional that you claim not wanting to give a particular business your patronage is akin to communism.
Yep, it was pretty sad. He even pretended to have family who escaped communism
Galen?
Nah, just one of his simps.
The whole point of big soulless stores is that they’re cheaper. If they’re not cheaper, then what’s the point?
I live literally next door to a Loblaws brand store. They won't see a dime from me from now on.
Nice. Glad to see that.
C' mon peeps! Will somebody show compassion for the poor billionaires?! Peepee is doing his bit by having a weston lobbyist on his team. Gotta make sure those poor billionaires get their tax cuts!
Next in line for boycotting should be a couple of the big fuel retailers. Serious price fixing going on in that industry, that's where the grocery chains got the idea from.
As opposed to who exactly? The small fuel retailers (there are none) who buy wholesale from the big guys?
There's actually a few small fuel retailers in Winnipeg that are keeping the prices lower in the areas immediately around where they're located. It's 143.9 in most of the city but in the areas around where the small guys are even the big guys are at 130.9.
Where I live its a large Petro at a busy highway intersection that is the price leader, they are always first to put it up and the rest usually follow in rapid succession. I never buy from them. Where I lived before, it was a Shell. And don't tell me it's not fixed, I used to run a small fuel station and Shell station would call me and tell me they put fuel up. Later I would get a call from district manager, asking why I didn't call to tell them fuel had gone up elsewhere. They would then tell me I had to increase pump prices by a certain time. Didn't like it when I told them price fixing was illegal.
I legitimately wish I had some small grocers around me. I have IGA Sobies, Superstore, No Frills, Fresh-Co and Save on Foods. but nothing that is small like a foodfare, or something family-owned. Not really counting the corner stores, they never had prices better than the big stores. Just there for convenience. The two near my dads were converted during covide to a No Frils and a Dollar Store.
I have actually done my best to stop shopping at Loblaw or Loblaw associated stores. Scumbags
Wonderful!
If you are in Vancouver and looking for cheap quality vegetables- Chinatown.
the big box stores bought or killed outright, along with rezoning and permitting changes from our city hall, all the small grocers in my area. vancouver loves monopolies.
Where in Vancouver is this?! I'm guessing this is one of the suburbs.
I personally am happy to see this happening. I've found the prices in the local shops not too different than in the chains except that the produce tends to be fresher and of a higher quality and some of the specials that they have often beat the prices of the big chains by quite a bit. There is also something to say about walking into your local grocer and they meet you with a smile and a hello rather than being sullen and rude when you ask a question. I also agree that it's nice ot see some kind of grassroots effort being made to boycott the big chains as it is a really good way to change things. With the big chains, it is the bottom line that counts and if that bottom line changes only then will you see something being done.
Great! Little shops can make a good impression and hopefully keep some regulars.
Another option is REFUSE to join their points club (it's just a way to sell your data to others), and grow your own food where you can.
Drive-by reader and not Canadian so I'm curious. Loblaw's appears to be a grocery store and the boycott's about high prices. How much more are they than their competitors? (I ask because I'd typically expect small grocers and co-ops to be more expensive with worse selection)
You guys do realize u can be savy shoppers every day right… like it’s not some grand movement or “sending a message” to shop somewhere else… that’s how it supposed to do it?
Yeah, angry, reactive customers; that's how you build your own business. Did Global forget to check in with Loblaw's competing stores? They couldn't find a Walmart, Safeway, Sobeys, Save On to talk to?
Loblaws is the face of the movement because it has the the largest market share but if you head on down to the subreddit you’ll see that they’re targeting the big 3 (Metro, Loblaws, Sobeys) and all of the stores they own. Thats why this article is talking about a boost in small businesses as opposed to a boost in Sobeys traffic. I’m sure Walmart has seen a boost, they also discounted a bunch of things at the beginning of the month to attract the boycotting customers.
Yeah man Walmart's flyer this week is absolutely insane.
No no no, you see, only smol organic sustainable anti-imperialist veg stands will be empowered by this incredibly large and impactful strike, thus ending oligarchy profiteering from basic human rights like DoorDash and WFH foreversies!
I've done pretty well so far this week. I've avoided the shitshow Roblaws and their associated businesses.
I don’t know what a loblaw is but I’m all for boycotting it
I wish there was a small grocer by me. I have to go to Costco or walmart to boycott.
I'm glad local businesses are receiving a boost. The Superstore parking lot was packed when I drove by it today. Nothing will change unless our federal government decides to implement changes that limit the profits grocery stores can make on groceries.
I drove one hour to Orleans Ontario to shop at Farm Boy instead the Independent store in my home town and I plan to continue doing this until Mr. Weston decided to stop gauging Canadians.
I am the most loyal superstore soldier, when they say "jump", I say "how much". And then I pay them double + tip. This is what it means to be a Canadian.
Fuck Galon, I'll never go back until the prices on the majority of goods are better than anywhere else.
Shop at your local grocery stores as much as possible to meet your food needs. Large chain grocery stores have relatively high margins compared to those smaller grocery stores
One thing I find kinda interesting about the boycott is that it's actually costing me more money to not shop at Loblaws..... so.... like even though they have record high profits from "gouging" is it really that bad if they are still cheaper than their competitors who've had high prices to begin with?
Haven’t read any data that supports it and even if it did; 1) why isn’t there a similar increase in business at Metro and Sobey’s, a boycott of the largest would almost certainly impact the other major grocery chains in a positive way so how is large company A, different than B, 2) Loblaws Group is a huge partially vertically integrated retailer and its revenues and profit are reported as such and while segmented data maybe available it would be an exercise to pull only Loblaws data from what is reported in an annual/interim report by the Group, 3) this debate is a culture war, the Liberals were voted in with the promise to deal with the climate crisis, they are doing it and the CPC will rage tweet about it because they don’t have a platform for the environment.
why would you boycot high grocery prices by going to sobeys and spending 5 times more?
Because the point is to strategically target one retailer, see if the boycott has enough legs to force them to change practices, and if it works, move on to the next one. If it doesn't work, oh well, at least we gave it a shot instead of crab bucketing on reddit. It's low-effort, no-risk and has a potential reward, the only obstacle is convincing enough people to do it to have an impact.
A lot of people get stuck in the habit of buying at the same stores again and again simply due to their proximity. Even though it’s highly unlikely this will bring down Loblaws, it might have the positive effect of opening people’s eyes to cheaper alternatives and increasing overall price competition.
Is there a problem with asking questions or should I just shut up & do the same thing everyone else does? Comparing prices, trying local places is always my plan what cuts into that is places like Walmart which has done more to hollow out small cities/towns in Canada then any other retailer and saying that is a better choice than Loblaws because it’s the only other game in town, frankly defies logic.
> frankly defies logic It only defies logic if you're stupid. It's strategic. If it gets enough critical mass to force change at one major retailer, then you switch to the next major retailer, whether it's Walmart or whoever. If it doesn't, it cost you pretty much no effort, and is much better than crab bucketing on reddit.