Boycott Loblaws?
 

I've read somewhere that a group of disgruntled shoppers are planning a boycott of Loblaws and their other affiliated stores for the month of May. Would like to hear what members here think of it.
Personally, I don't blame just Loblaws for food inflation. Prices are high everywhere but a boycott of a major grocery chain would send a message and just complaining never gets anything done. This might have some positive effect if enough people follow through.

We would get much better results if people would boycott the Liberal Party of Canada.

ARG

All part of the liberals and NDP plan to pass the buck on the true effects of the Carbon tax. The $3.74 Loblaws makes on $100.00 worth of groceries isn’t the problem. Even the complaining about Weston’s $11.8 million salary isn’t outrageous when Loblaws has 221,000 employees. Which works out to roughly $53 per year per employee.

I think the real problem is that people think that the high cost of groceries is the fault of grocery stores. I wish we could boycott the people that think like that until they stop voting for the NDP/LIB parties.

Exactly. Grocery store margins are under 4%, they aren't causing inflation. The politicians know this too, but it's a convenient scapegoat for their incompetence and economy wrecking policies.

I have no issue with Loblaws making money. I do have an issue with the Liberals making it expensive/difficult for companies to operate, while encouraging inflation, so they raise their prices so they can still make money, then blaming a company for raising their prices.

Large corporations are run by people who are well paid and usually very good at their job. I have no issue with this. As a matter of fact it is the very foundation of a free market. These companies and CEO’s take the risks and deserve to make a profit and be well paid. Politicians on the other hand take very little responsibility risk as they’re too busy pandering to everyone. If anyone is overpaid it’s them!

I worked with a guy who used to be a store manager for Superstore. He said their 3-4% margin is a lot of smoke and mirrors--Loblaws is fairly vertically integrated in the grocer business, owning a lot of the distribution, warehousing and logistics--and also owns all real estate that Superstores sit on. Individual Superstores are then charged much higher than market value rent on their leases, and higher costs on distribution, cutting into store margins significantly, while the overall holding company profits happily.

That is still not to say that they aren't still making relatively thin margins, but their claim of $4 per $100 of groceries spent is probably closer to $7-8 he figured if Superstores were could competitively use market rate leases and distribution + some other aspects of the value chain I can't recall that Loblaws owns as well.

Agree and look how many people they(and other big corps) employ across the country.

You are correct, don't blame the grocery store for high food prices. But they don't deserve to be boycotted.

Loblaws is a public company. It posts audited financial statements. Everyone and anyone can check to see if they are ripping consumers off. So for s*ts and g*gles I looked up their financial results.

Gross profit for grocery + pharmacy has been 30-32% over the past 5 years, this includes the time period when politicians are blaming grocers for "ripping you off". The gross profit on a basket of grocery+pharma has not changed when inflation was high. Net income margin sits squarely at 10-11%, which is also unchanged. Pharmacy margins are typically 2-3x what grocery margins are so pure grocery net profit is going to be mid to low single digit. That's not much of a profit if Loblaws is ripping consumers off.

If Loblaws is ripping you off then their gross profit margin and the net income percentage would have skyrocketed. But Loblaws is making the same margins as before inflation. It is just their costs have gone up which you are paying for. But the employees aren't going to work for free just as you won't work for free.

What has changed is their sales have gone up as people behave rationally by shopping at grocery stores more and eating out less, so same-store-sales % has grown. If you want to blame anyone, blame Trudeau. He has been printing money out of thin air which is inflationary.

Blaming grocery stores for high food prices is like the bank robber blaming the bank teller. It's willful ignorance and lazy thinking, which is exactly what your federal government is exploiting when they blame Loblaws for a problem they created.

You seen the federal budget details from last week? Massive printing of money is happening again. You want grocery prices to ease up? Easy. Don't elect Trudeau in the past 3 elections.

Even if is was 7-8%, $7-8 dollars on $100 dollars of groceries isn’t the problem.

Yes, all the smaller, independent grocers they helped force out of business is wonderful. So instead of the money being in local hands, it's in the hands of overseas investors.

Absolutely. The grocery retailers aren't the problem. From the producer to the retailer the carbon tax in multiplied at least 5 times, then GST is added to the tax.

BW

X2, the problems are beyond their control, everything from fertilizer to trucking, etc, etc.

Bunch of political smoke & mirrors drummed up by the NDP in my opinion. It's a distraction to keep their fans occupied with anything other than looking at what the NDP & Libs are really doing.
I'd hate to see the utilitiy bills and maybe the property taxes they pay on those stores, freight expenses, spoilage & damage rates, various cooling/heating system maintenance expenses. The one thing that makes it able to work, is the sales volume and a pretty much guaranteed market.
Ya, the refridgeration deal the Libs gave them was an unnecessary and dirty subsidy, that kind of krap probably ought to be investigated deeper, but, it was given some window dressing, and it won't be. Seems to me that was where the rhetoric started and Jaggy boy has kept it up since then, few Libs jump on the bandwagon to make themselves look good once in a while, keep the narrative alive.

Boycott Loblaws and do what? Buy cheaper from where?:angry3:

I already boycott Safeway, Sobeys, Co-Op, Save-On-Foods and others like them.

He makes me puke, and he is to blame as much as the other one if not more since he's the one that keeps him in power. What a total jerk, to put it mild.

:mad3:

Agreed. Many, many retailers, it's 50-1000% markup.

Did you all know that Cocoa bean costs have gone up by 250 % this year?

When you have your chocolate bar or chocolate cake and complain about the high price, remember that the cost went up.

Did you know that the cost of Canola has more than tripled in the last 10 years?

When you decide to do some cooking, remember that the cost went up.

Same can be said for all categories of food.

That is called inflation, and a reply to world demand and decreasing supply.

Yes Loblaws and all other Grocers have invested in the commercial farms from which they derive profit, and there is alot of profit made at each stage of production from farm to shelf. In the end, the consumer pays.

What hurts Canadians is when Government decides to add extra costs through pointless agendas like Climate Change, more Bureaucracy and higher indirect Taxation (Carbon Tax).

Great ideas such as banning the use of fertilizer also hurts as this reduces agricultural production. This is how detached Justin and Friends are from reality. Less agricultural production, lower supply curve for the goods, higher price for goods. But Liberals simply don't care. They just want to brag about how virtuous they are at their champagne and caviar meetings with their global elite counterparts.

The big polluters of the World, being China, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, etc, simply do not care about the environment. We are made to suffer economically by our Governments, when what we do will make no difference for their agenda of Climate Change.

Now lets see if CBC will admit this truth.

Drewski

Would a small local independent grocer sell me Alberta beef at a local price or at the same price as anywhere else in Canada?

Why do we have to pay global prices on gas and any other things that are produced locally???

Are groceries cheaper somewhere else?

I'd say Wall mart and the Loblaws Yellow stores are about as cheap as it gets, speaking from personal experience. Sobeys, Safeway and Coops are at the high end. Interesting, some stores are unionized in Ontario, but not here.

Loblaws profit margin is still around 4%. Not a big margin for any retailers or business.

They are also the cheapest so anyone boycotting will be paying a lot more at Sobeys, Safeway, Coop etc.

It’s such a woke world.

Trudeau wants to deflect from his idiocracy and went on his blaming grocery stores for rising prices instead of removing carbon tax on groceries.

Now Trudeau is blaming people with money at the same time ignoring his own millions in a trust fund.

People follow his bouncing ball like a lost puppy. It makes me sad folks don’t see through this and instead jump on these misdirections.

Pfft, boycott what a stupid idea, I guess it never dawned on a people to shop around. It's a competition folks, go buy your stuff where it is the cheapest, here's a hint it will not all be at the same store.

I have found co op to be expensive except on loss leaders, they have had the best prices on loss leaders for over a year.

So not a great choice to boycott them then it seems.

Exactly, the liberals cause inflation, then they blame the stores for gouging.

Record Profits Folks.
 

Both Loblaws and Safeway reported record profits last quarter of 2023, IIRC 12 million available alone to "common shareholders" (Loblaws).


Creeky....


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This whole thing makes zero sense. If they want to go on a hunger strike for a month, or eat their food storage instead that may be one thing. But to boycott $7 bread at on place to buy $7 bread at another is, well, ridiculous.

Solvent grocery stores is kind of a win. For people that like to eat anyway.