Full Comment - Price-fixing at Canada’s grocery stores is bigger than just bread

00:00:00.000 Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can

00:00:06.980 keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay

00:00:11.800 for what you need. TD, ready for you. Inflation, shrinkflation, greedflation, price fixing. These

00:00:25.500 are just some of the topics in the news of late when it comes to food, the ever-increasing

00:00:30.080 cost of food. Hello, I'm Brian Lilly, and this is the Full Comment Podcast. I don't mean

00:00:34.980 to depress you right now talking about food and how much it costs to feed yourself and

00:00:39.680 your family, but it is a topic of discussion nonetheless. Now, before we get started on

00:00:45.280 this most vexing of topics, I do want to ask you a favor. On whatever device, whatever

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00:00:59.820 the riveting conversations we have here at the Full Comment Podcast. Conversations like

00:01:04.760 the price of food. The topic is coming up everywhere, and it's little wonder. We all have to eat,

00:01:10.080 and it's getting more expensive. If you heard about the latest Stats Canada report on inflation,

00:01:15.200 sounded like good news. Inflation is cool, down to 3.4%. But food inflation remains high. Grocery

00:01:21.780 prices going up an average of 9% compared to a year ago. And for some products, it's even higher.

00:01:27.920 Oils, like canola or olive oil, up 20%. Bakery products, up 15. Cereal, your cornflakes is costing

00:01:34.920 you 13.6% more than a year ago. So what's causing it, and how do we fix it? It's been the topic of

00:01:42.180 some discussion among politicians, some looking for real solutions, some looking to grandstand. And of

00:01:47.660 course, we've got the government just introduced grocery rebate. Will that help? These are the

00:01:53.100 questions I want to put to Sylvain Charlebois, the food professor. Sylvain is a professor of food

00:01:57.780 distribution and policy. He's also scientific director at Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie

00:02:03.060 University in Halifax. But today, he joins us from the Food Center of Canada, perhaps Quebec City.

00:02:09.340 Sylvain, thanks so much.

00:02:10.200 It's certainly the capital of tourism right now, for sure.

00:02:16.760 I'm doing well. And after you told me about being in Quebec City, I'm just thinking back to

00:02:22.640 some of the wonderful meals I've had there. The restaurants are great.

00:02:27.660 Oh, yes. And affordable, too. It's surprising. Service is great. Lots of people. We were out in

00:02:34.160 old Quebec last night, and my goodness, the place was just jumping. It's great to see people back

00:02:40.560 out there. It is quite warm. It's very hot right now in Quebec City, but people are enjoying the

00:02:46.200 great food, enjoying the great company, and it's nice.

00:02:48.940 The issue of food inflation, this is something that you and I have talked about before. You've

00:02:53.620 done so many interviews about it. We've listened to the politicians talk. What is driving up the

00:03:00.080 cost of food? Is it just supply chain issues? Is it global inflation generally? Is it the

00:03:08.580 greedflation that we've heard so many politicians jump on, I think, for calculated partisan gain?

00:03:16.980 Oh, yes, absolutely. So this is what happened, Brian, when you politicize the issue of food

00:03:22.820 inflation. On the one side, you see many people accusing businesses, accusing even individuals,

00:03:30.080 individuals, individualizing food inflation, like what we saw against Galen Western, for

00:03:36.540 example. And also, you have governments giving money to people to cope with food inflation.

00:03:44.920 So it's a bit messy out there. The fact of the matter is that we are looking at the agri-food

00:03:51.780 system, and the reality of agri-food business is that it's always been a high volume, low margin,

00:04:00.000 environment. And so when things like COVID happens, when Ukraine happens, when you have the weather

00:04:10.200 not playing along all around the world, and of course, supply chain issues have actually impacted

00:04:17.460 the efficiency of food systems, you end up seeing a slew of factors just pushing prices higher.

00:04:25.740 The thing that I think has been underappreciated in the media is that because you are in a low margin

00:04:32.200 environment, you can't just jack up prices all at once. You have to incrementally increase prices as

00:04:40.500 salaries go up, the price packaging goes up, and a lot of different things actually are more expensive

00:04:48.020 now. And we're feeling it. We've been feeling this inflationary heat at the grocery store for quite a

00:04:57.340 while. And it's going to last a while. So if people are saying, well, Ukraine's over, the Ukrainian effect 0.73

00:05:02.880 is over, COVID has been over now for a while, supply chains seems to be, supply chains are doing better,

00:05:09.580 which is all true. But at the same time, you're also seeing companies coping with higher costs,

00:05:16.820 no matter what, but you can't really just force your way through the supply chain and ask for more

00:05:22.620 money. It just doesn't work that way overnight. So you have to kind of incrementally increase prices

00:05:27.820 over time, which is why now the gap between food inflation and inflation is over 5%. And so

00:05:34.760 that's why people are still upset with food prices in general.

00:05:40.060 Seen this coming for a while. I remember it was about two years ago, speaking to a farmer from out

00:05:47.640 west who was very happy on the one side that his commodity prices had gone up. He was getting more

00:05:54.720 per bushel for his wheat, but all his inputs were going up, sometimes at a faster pace. So whether it

00:06:04.740 was the fuel to run his tractors, his seeders, whether it was the fertilizer, which definitely

00:06:12.420 due to the war in Ukraine, the cost of fertilizer went up, depending on when you purchase, between

00:06:16.900 two and four times what you had paid the year before. This is, I guess, slowly trickling through

00:06:23.520 the system would be part of what we're talking about here.

00:06:25.920 Not necessarily, Brian. You see, farmers are dealing with price-taking economics. So you

00:06:34.480 basically will take the price the market will want you to get, essentially. And so on the one side,

00:06:42.160 as a farmer, you hope for the best. You hope that commodity prices remain high and that your input

00:06:48.140 costs remain low. But that's rare. That's very rare. And that's why often farmers do experience a bad

00:06:54.900 year. Last year was actually pretty good. They actually were able to get decent contracts.

00:07:02.240 Input costs were higher. Some of it had to do with the economics of distribution. But as you know,

00:07:08.960 Brian, they had to pay tariffs due to measures against Russia. Yeah. And so those measures really

00:07:17.560 impacted farmers. And what was really unfortunate is that Mr. Bebo actually promised farmers to

00:07:24.260 reimburse them because it was about $34 million. And $34 million is quite a lot of money for farmers

00:07:32.280 in particular because you can't get that money back by selling higher. That's what price-taking economics

00:07:39.520 are all about. And so unfortunately, they were never reimbursed as a result. But still, overall,

00:07:45.600 it was a very good year. They had to put a lot of money in the ground to make some good money.

00:07:50.160 This year, my guess is it's going to be an okay year, but it's not going to be as good as last year.

00:07:56.980 Let's deal with the hot issue in the media of greedflation. There was this idea that Galen Weston,

00:08:04.760 I can't recall, is he retired or it's about to take effect? He was the president and CEO of Loblaws.

00:08:11.720 Recently announced he's stepping down. He's the guy in the yellow sweater from all those

00:08:15.520 no-name ads.

00:08:16.220 He's stepping down, but he remains chair, so he's still going to be around for sure.

00:08:19.760 And the family's still going to own it. But there was this claim that Galen Weston and these other

00:08:25.420 supermarket executives, who nobody knows quite as well, you know the names, but most people wouldn't

00:08:32.040 know who they are. The claim though was that, well, these guys are just being greedy and they're

00:08:37.160 gouging customers. And when you see, I saw a jar of jam the other day, something I don't buy that

00:08:44.240 often, but I still know around what the price should be. And it was $7.49 for what I used to

00:08:50.220 pay under five bucks for. No wonder people say, oh, they're just being greedy. They're gouging me

00:08:55.860 now. But you've looked at greedflation. You've looked at this idea that it's just gouging. And

00:09:01.860 you've said, hmm, the facts don't back it up. Why and how do you say that?

00:09:07.660 So are grocers making good money? Of course they are. I actually do believe that Metro,

00:09:16.120 Empire, and Loblaw, the big three, as we call them, are very well-managed companies. But if you look at

00:09:24.220 financial reports over the last couple of quarters, you will notice that companies,

00:09:32.180 grocers, aren't really making money selling food. Loblaws would be one case. So Loblaws made almost

00:09:41.480 $2 billion last year, which is a lot of money for Loblaws. And was it a record profit year,

00:09:47.280 profiteering year? It was, absolutely. So to say that they are making retro profits is not

00:09:54.040 necessarily wrong. But if you look at the last quarter, Q4, you'll notice that Loblaws' food

00:10:03.380 sales have gone up by only 3.1%. 3.1% while food inflation was well over 9% for the entire quarter.

00:10:12.820 That means, Brian, that they're treading water when it's time to sell food. They're making money

00:10:18.580 selling drugs, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, clothing, real estate. Their banking program is doing very

00:10:28.460 well, too. That's how they're making money. Sobiz is another example. So if you look at Empire's

00:10:33.840 financial results in the last quarter, just the one that was reported a few weeks ago, they actually

00:10:39.100 sold during that quarter $16 million less of food compared to the same quarter last year. In other

00:10:48.940 words, people are spending less on food at the grocery store, not more. They're retreating with

00:10:55.040 their wallets. They're going to dollar stores. They're buying different brands. They're trading

00:10:59.160 down. And why they're trading down? It's because of mortgage rates. It's because of rents.

00:11:04.980 To keep a roof over your head, you cannot trade down. It's harder to do that unless you move or

00:11:11.660 you get somebody else to move in with you. And that's why people are trading down at the grocery

00:11:16.700 store. That's why I think it's the opposite of grief inflation happening. It's tougher to sell

00:11:22.880 food to Canadians. There's no money to be made just selling food right now, unfortunately. But a lot of

00:11:29.400 people don't want to believe it and will not want to believe it.

00:11:33.400 That's why you've got so many stores that have the pharmacy on the inside or the dry cleaner or

00:11:40.880 they want to have beer and wine on the shelves next to the food.

00:11:45.780 That's right. And in the province of Quebec where I am, grocery stores right now are making a lot of

00:11:51.000 me selling beer and wine. That's really what is helping their bottom line. In other provinces like

00:11:59.100 Ontario, it's starting. But it's been very challenging just selling. The food business of

00:12:04.600 the grocery business has been particularly challenging.

00:12:09.140 So basically, profit margins on food are staying the same. They're stable, but they're not great.

00:12:18.580 It's not good business right now. On the other hand, of course, as you know, Brian, I've been quite

00:12:24.620 critical of criminal behavior. There's no, I don't think Canadians should tolerate companies breaking

00:12:31.200 the law. I mean, there's no, there's a hard line there for sure. So as much as I believe that there

00:12:37.060 is no greed or greed is difficult to measure in the first place, as much as I believe that some

00:12:44.620 executives in Canada should have gone to jail by now. I mean, let's be honest.

00:12:49.040 Well, let's talk about this then. You've got one of the players in the bread price fixing scheme

00:12:57.980 admitting wrongdoing recently. Their parent company, Group Bimbo, owns Canada Bread now.

00:13:04.880 Canada Bread admitted to on four different instances, working with Weston, which owned at

00:13:10.980 that point both Loblaws and they had the, what was their bakery called?

00:13:16.820 Yeah, it was George Weston Bakery, but I think it was, well, Canada Bread was, was, was with

00:13:21.220 Maple Leaf, but I think it's mostly Wonder Bread is what the, the Westons produced.

00:13:24.880 That's right. It's Weston Bakeries.

00:13:28.180 Yeah. They admitted that they fixed prices on at least four occasions. Now, Loblaws and Weston,

00:13:35.440 they, they have not admitted publicly to what they're doing in the same way because they agreed

00:13:40.720 to cooperate with the competition bureau. So they got immunity. So we don't know all the details,

00:13:45.820 but Canada Bread admitted to price fixing with Weston on four occasions, all the other

00:13:51.260 grocers, Empire Metro, um, I believe the giant tiger group, others, Walmart, they've all said,

00:13:57.440 we have, you know, we didn't do anything wrong. We're not admitting to anything, but the investigation

00:14:03.240 goes on. We're talking over the course of the years that this was going on. You, you believe

00:14:10.220 that it was going on longer than what was admitted to in, in the court settlement. Um, how much did

00:14:18.400 this hit the average family? The fact that the price of bread went up only pennies, only pennies

00:14:24.720 per loaf, but pennies that it didn't have to go up. It was price fixing. Um, and it, you've done the

00:14:33.060 calculation. What, what was the hit to the family budget?

00:14:36.020 Yeah. So when, uh, when, uh, Loblaws and Western bakeries, uh, admitted guilt back in 2017, uh, in

00:14:43.720 2018, we were asked about the accomplishment bureau to, uh, conduct an analysis on that particular

00:14:49.040 point. Uh, how much, uh, did this, uh, allege price fixing scheme cost Canadians? And, and, and they

00:14:57.460 also asked us whether or not it was possible that, uh, there was this scheme going on for 14 years. So,

00:15:03.680 so to answer your question, Brian, we actually believe that the, uh, that the 14 years where

00:15:10.480 we believe there was this price fixing scheme going on, it would have costs, uh, we believe it

00:15:17.400 would have cost anywhere between $150 to $400, uh, per families for over 14 years. So, but.

00:15:25.340 And so then you do your own calculation based on family size. If it's a bigger family, you probably

00:15:31.780 paid more smaller family, less $400. That's not insignificant. It's not insignificant, but here's

00:15:38.140 the, here's the challenge. Uh, you know, the, the, to me, the group of bimbo, um, and, and mission 1.00

00:15:46.360 was incredibly important because all of a sudden you do link this scandal to, uh, the number one meat

00:15:58.880 processor in the country, maple leaf foods. Uh, and they're not just, they weren't not just in

00:16:04.760 bread. They're, they're in meat. And they, they, they was an email security recently in the media

00:16:10.120 written by Michael McCain. I, I've, I've got a copy. You saw it. Yeah. You saw it. Uh, and, and there

00:16:17.320 are comments about, about this one category, which is meat, which is a very important category for

00:16:24.700 Canadians. And so what went on there? What was the price facing culture at maple leaf during those 14

00:16:32.520 years? Exactly. And those are questions that are still pending. And I think Canadians deserve an

00:16:37.720 answer. And to me, to me, there's, there's a big difference between coping with food costs or the

00:16:44.440 cost to manufacture food, which is inflation. We've talked about that earlier versus breaking

00:16:50.420 the law. And, and, and that part to me is so damaging to the food industry. We've been talking

00:16:56.860 about, you know, attracting companies like Aldi and Little in Canada to come to Canada. Why would

00:17:02.900 they ever invest in Canada when, when they see these headlines suggesting that there is this boys club,

00:17:09.080 uh, working together on fixing prices? I mean, that's just not good for business.

00:17:15.280 I want to read you the, the email that was sent. Um, it was from the person who was then the executive

00:17:25.220 assistant. It was sent from her account, the executive assistant to Michael McCain, while he

00:17:30.440 was president and CEO of Maple Leaf foods. And it was signed Michael. And in the email, it said,

00:17:38.160 it described how, uh, McCain had met with a then executive, uh, uh, Metro grocery chain and that

00:17:46.180 they discussed how to manage category profit up. And it said, consistent with the position that he took

00:17:53.420 on the last bread price increase, his point of view, and it's a very vigorous point of view is that this

00:18:00.840 is an acceptable strategy and they're aligned with it. Even in our meat categories, that's directly from

00:18:08.040 the email. Now, Maple Leaf food says they've not been involved in any of this. In fact, they dispute

00:18:13.540 why the new owners of Canada bread admitted to doing anything wrong. Metro says they did nothing

00:18:18.820 wrong, but that's the email that the competition bureau has. And the competition bureau is now

00:18:23.260 looking into, uh, all these other grocers and in their own statement, they said they're looking at

00:18:30.020 Maple Leaf foods as well. Absolutely. So I do, I do question why the email was written in the first

00:18:37.080 place. That's one thing. Cause I don't think I would put something like this on email. Uh, if,

00:18:42.840 if I, if I intend to do something like this, but the plain reading of it is fixing prices. I mean,

00:18:49.560 they, they can dispute it, but a reasonable person looking at that email would say, well,

00:18:55.800 wait a minute. Um, they, they want to do with me what they did with bread. I have every reason to

00:19:01.860 believe that, uh, that price fixing in Canada has been normalized in the grocery industry. Let me

00:19:07.320 give you one other example in the fall, every fall, Brian, uh, grocers ask suppliers to freeze

00:19:15.260 prices for three months between November and January around the holiday season. Uh, all grocers do the

00:19:24.260 same thing. They call it the blackout period. You may have actually heard about this term, but the

00:19:30.140 blackout period has been a practice for years. And the argument, uh, to support the blackout period

00:19:37.100 is that, well, it's the holiday season. It's very busy. Can't change prices of items, uh, on a daily

00:19:43.560 basis. So let's freeze prices to make sure. But when you actually start thinking about how that practice

00:19:51.280 could impact retail prices, it is really, in my view, uh, a, a, a up the stream upstream collusion,

00:20:01.460 really, because you're basically setting new market conditions that could severely impact

00:20:07.460 retail prices in the end. And last fall, when Loblaw decided to freeze its prices, Metro came out

00:20:16.640 saying, well, we do that every year. It's called the blackout period. And I go, and I went, you're

00:20:21.860 actually admitting that you're colluding upstream. Is that what you're, is that what you're doing?

00:20:26.520 And they actually backtracked and Loblaw denied, uh, the existence of blackout period. So again,

00:20:33.960 I actually, and I've been in, I've been following this business for 25 years now. I do think that,

00:20:39.080 uh, that the Canadian food in business has a price fixing problem overall.

00:20:46.420 You know, it was, uh, interesting. I didn't know about the blackout period when Loblaw announced

00:20:52.840 their price freeze until January 31st of last year. And then later I was reading about the blackout

00:21:02.080 period and how it always ends on January 31st. And I thought you guys weren't going to increase

00:21:08.460 prices anyway until January 31st. Exactly. Well, here's the thing. I mean, I know what happened

00:21:14.480 in October when, when Loblaw announced, uh, its price freeze as of, as of, uh, I think it was

00:21:19.940 October 17th up until January 21st, 30th. Metro was upset because it couldn't do, Metro is not Loblaw.

00:21:28.140 Loblaw is a massive organization. It has two private labels that are very well known, very strong

00:21:34.600 private labels. Metro doesn't have any of that. So they got upset and they came out, uh, and said

00:21:41.100 to media, well, this is something we all do by the way. And it came out wrong, but nobody, I felt nobody

00:21:48.940 picked up on that. I, I certainly did. I thought, well, geez, this is, this is a problem. You're now

00:21:54.740 normalizing price fixing. That's, that's what I heard. Oh my goodness. Okay. So we've got to take

00:22:04.820 a break and I'm exasperated already. We've been talking about price fixing, but there's also the

00:22:11.800 issue of competition. We just had the competition bureau release a report saying, uh, the government

00:22:18.140 needs to act to bring us more competition. I'd like them to act on price fixing first, but we'll talk

00:22:22.960 about what, if anything, the government can do, um, when we come back after this break.

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00:22:58.820 So a lack of competition or some say too much and an issue around price fixing. What can government do

00:23:05.280 to deal with this? Anything? Can anything be done? Uh, Sylvain, you've been studying this, as you said,

00:23:11.700 for about 25 years. This is the first time I remember the competition bureau really making a big stink about

00:23:18.000 something. And on, in any industry that, that, that, that's consumer facing. Um, and it's still

00:23:25.520 taken, what, six years, seven years. Um, is the competition bureau the right, is it set up properly

00:23:35.200 to deal with issues like price fixing or what more could the government do on that side?

00:23:39.240 Uh, you know, I, I think it lacks focus. Uh, I, we've actually had the pleasure to work with the

00:23:48.160 competition bureau on, on, on three occasions. The first one was the bread, it was on the bread

00:23:53.420 scandal. The second one was when, uh, empire bought a farm boy. And the third one was when, uh, empire

00:24:01.260 bought, uh, longos, uh, in Toronto. And so, and of course, every time we at, we are asked whether or not

00:24:09.040 this will compromise competition in, in, in the landscape. And so I actually do think that the

00:24:16.580 competition bureau biggest problem is not necessarily, uh, not having enough power or

00:24:21.960 authority. It's very much about focus and, and scope. So let me give you an example. So when we

00:24:27.780 actually had a chat about farm boy, we didn't see an issue because we thought that this could actually

00:24:34.680 leverage a good brand for the GTA because farm boy was very much in the Eastern part of Ontario.

00:24:42.380 So this could, it was an Ottawa store that, uh, when I moved back down to Toronto, I desperately

00:24:47.580 wanted it to follow me and it did.

00:24:50.380 Exactly. So you, you got what you wish for, for sure. And, and, and that's exactly what's,

00:24:56.140 what's happening right now. Farm boy stores are opening up in different places, which is great.

00:25:00.000 I mean, it brings more competition. Uh, two years later, we are asked again to have a chat with the

00:25:05.660 bureau, uh, about, uh, about longos. And, and I, I, I kind of said to the bureau, you know,

00:25:13.600 this conversation about longos kind of changes our conversation that we had two years ago about

00:25:18.540 farm boy. Cause you're, you're seeing a second major independent grocer disappear.

00:25:24.420 Honestly, I don't think they understood what I was saying, uh, cause they kind of really,

00:25:31.460 they kind of took note and that's about it with this particular study this year, they came back

00:25:39.520 to us to talk about independent grocers. So I think Brian, you're reading this, right? It's the

00:25:45.060 first time really that the bureau really took the food industry very seriously and competition very

00:25:53.380 seriously. Now to see the competition bureau saying that we need more competition is a bit

00:25:58.480 of an oxymoron. Of course we all need competition. I mean, that's, but the, but the reality with Canada

00:26:04.780 is that we have a ill relationship with the concept of competition. We want crown corporations. We want

00:26:11.300 monopolies. We want consumers to be protected until prices become an issue. And then we expect government

00:26:17.800 to fix the problem and they can't. And so that's kind of the dilemma that we have in the United

00:26:24.040 States. There is a lot of collusion going on and, and we know that, but people go to jail and there's

00:26:30.020 lots of consolidation as well, but the commitment towards competition is pretty darn clear in, in the

00:26:38.120 U S I mean, people want competition in Canada. It depends. And that's why we're facing the dilemma

00:26:47.620 that we're facing right now when it comes to the role of the bureau itself. In their report, the,

00:26:53.700 um, uh, the competition bureau in the report on the need for greater competition did say that

00:27:02.060 international grocers may be holding off because it's pretty tough competition in the Canadian

00:27:08.760 marketplace already. Do you buy that? It's, I mean, you have oligopolies with only two players in

00:27:16.220 Canada. I mean, that's, uh, and we have five, uh, in Canada. You, you think it's, you, you think it's,

00:27:23.460 uh, we, we have five players in Canada. You got the big three plus Costco and Walmart. Okay. Those are

00:27:31.420 non Canadians, uh, Canadian firms, but there's still, there's, there's both Costco and Walmart are now

00:27:38.340 selling more food than Metro. So, uh, so they're significant players, but my, my, um, my take on

00:27:47.320 competition is, is pretty simple. Um, on the one side, make Canada more, more of an attractive market

00:27:54.380 to invest in. Cause right now it's not, it's, we have interprovincial barriers. Our fiscal policies are

00:28:01.120 pretty ridiculous, uh, rules between provinces change on labor immensely. I mean, look at the last

00:28:09.820 10 years we've lost. I mean, target came in and out overnight, almost, uh, Nonstrom left. We hardly

00:28:17.380 got to know exactly. And, um, you know, Lowe's left, uh, Sears left. I mean, it's tough to be a national

00:28:25.660 player. Walmart, when it came to, to Canada in 1994, when it bought Wolco, they didn't have like

00:28:34.360 400 stores. They actually started with like 20 stores and they gradually augmented their network

00:28:40.600 of stores learning about Canada. So they started in Ontario and then they got into Quebec and they

00:28:47.080 were really, really deliberately slow in deploying, uh, their strategy in Canada. And it paid off.

00:28:55.520 I mean, they understand Canada, but it takes time. It takes time. Do you think at Aldi and little

00:29:01.620 have the same patients? No, it's, it's, you, you, I was going to ask you about them. You know, my,

00:29:07.740 my family in Britain shops at Aldi, my family in Florida and Texas and California, they all shop at

00:29:14.080 Aldi. Aldi's in, uh, Australia. They're all over the place. They're across Western Europe. We don't

00:29:21.320 have them. Why? And people will say, well, we don't, we're not, we're not a big country. We're

00:29:26.060 only 40 million people. But the last time I checked, Australia has a smaller population and they do have

00:29:31.220 Aldi. So, so the one thing Canada can be made interesting, uh, it's just right now all each 0.81

00:29:40.880 province will have its own set of rules and it's really not helping. And the second thing, again,

00:29:46.560 going back to the bread scandal, these headlines aren't helping either. If you go to Australia,

00:29:53.200 they're very, very, they go after criminals very, very forcefully. So that's one thing.

00:29:57.780 The second thing, uh, I think the code of conduct is, is necessary. Uh, it's, it's something that's

00:30:04.120 been in the works for quite a few years. I've actually advocated in favor of the code of conduct.

00:30:08.940 I've actually helped the Bureau on, on this, on this issue as well. And in the code of conduct

00:30:14.800 for people who don't understand what it is, I'll keep it as simple as possible.

00:30:19.080 I know the scanning code of conduct, but is this one for the grocery industry instead of just the,

00:30:25.420 the, the one about prices?

00:30:27.780 It's more for a supply chain discipline. Cause right now, Brian, if you're, um,

00:30:34.800 Lasson, if you're Pepsi, if you're, uh, Unilever, you get letters from grocers telling you, well,

00:30:42.220 tomorrow we're going to charge you more for listing fees, for marketing fees, for

00:30:46.460 unilaterally over the years, we've seen many decisions, uh, made by grocers and they can get

00:30:54.800 away with it because if you're, if you're, if you have a problem with say Loblaw, you have to

00:31:02.560 suck it up. I'm sorry to say, uh, but that's really how things work in the food industry.

00:31:08.460 You're at the mercy of, of grocers cause you need them to do business. And the code would offer a safe

00:31:17.120 place to go for everyone to resolve disputes. I'll give you one concrete example. Two companies in the

00:31:23.800 last two weeks have called me. They're being delisted by a grocer. I won't tell you which one

00:31:29.840 in six weeks. So in six weeks from now, they are gone. Okay. Think about that. So you have a company,

00:31:38.660 they're in the juice business, both of them. They bought their ingredients. They, they, they're,

00:31:44.000 they're using a lot of credit to get all the stuff they need to make juices, to make their beverages.

00:31:50.080 And now they're going to be stuck with all that inventory because they just lost their number one

00:31:55.480 customer. So I'm not disputing the delisting part. Grocers can do whatever they want. They can do

00:32:02.280 business with whoever they want. The six weeks though is completely cruel. And it could actually,

00:32:07.760 it could actually force both companies to go under within, within a month or two as a result.

00:32:13.740 So that's been the kind of things that, well, I've seen anyways, that should stop as soon as

00:32:19.740 possible. Do you think that, you know, this code or other measures could, you know, if the right

00:32:27.200 measures policies are taken could make Canada attractive to a Kroger, a Trader Joe's, an Aldi

00:32:34.000 to say, you know what, maybe we don't go across Canada, but maybe Trader Joe's, uh, sets up in

00:32:40.480 Vancouver instead of everyone going to the store just across, maybe Aldi starts going into

00:32:45.080 Southern Ontario or Kroger goes into Quebec.

00:32:48.600 Well, Australia and the UK both have a code of conduct similar to what we're talking about

00:32:53.680 now. And so there, there, I think it would help. It would help because as, as a grocer,

00:33:01.260 let's say you're Aldi, uh, and you look at Canada, if you see that there, there is this existence

00:33:06.660 of a code, you know, for sure that Loblaws won't try to kill you. Cause I mean, it's, that's really

00:33:14.640 why I think the code could make the Canadian food landscape more competitive over time,

00:33:22.340 not overnight, over time. It will take probably about a decade.

00:33:26.820 Wow. In the meantime, what do you recommend for, for families who are looking at the ever

00:33:33.940 increasing cost of food? Cause that 9% food inflation isn't going away. Um, I, I learned to

00:33:40.700 shop from my mother back in the time when inflation was, uh, the last time inflation was a huge issue

00:33:45.700 in the early eighties, uh, shopping the specials, going around, doing all of that. Um, and I've

00:33:51.160 written columns on, on, on how to save money at the grocery store, but what, what do you say to

00:33:55.700 families frustrated with the price of food, the cost of it and, uh, in feeling helpless at, at the

00:34:03.560 thought of it, another trip to the grocery store? Well, I guess two things, uh, one consumers have

00:34:09.520 more power than they think. Uh, they can actually influence prices, uh, daily by, by, if something

00:34:16.780 show up at the grocery store and something is, is too expensive for your budget, chances are there's

00:34:22.980 some, there's a substitute in that same store that can do the, that can do the trick. And so,

00:34:27.980 and if, if, if you, if you recall that those, those five breasts of chicken, uh, that were

00:34:35.180 overpriced, uh, it was actually on Twitter a while back and people were upset. Well, guess

00:34:41.660 what? In the GTA the week after, uh, chicken breasts were 20% off because nobody was buying,

00:34:47.940 were buying them. So we have more power than we think really. Secondly, my biggest concern

00:34:54.940 about food affordability in Canada is not necessarily linked to food prices. It's actually,

00:35:00.580 uh, linked to, um, mortgage rates. I actually do believe that mortgage payments are absolutely

00:35:09.580 killing Canadian households right now. Uh, if you have a mortgage of 300,000, which is a modest

00:35:15.280 mortgage, uh, in Toronto, for example, Vancouver, I'm more to size over 25 years, you're basically

00:35:23.360 paying seven to $8,000 more just to keep a roof over your head, which is why people are spending

00:35:29.420 less at the grocery store, but there's so much compromise you can make at the grocery store.

00:35:35.000 So that's why I think we're reaching, we're slowly reaching a tipping point here when it

00:35:38.880 comes to food affordability. And, and that's why I actually do think I've been advocating.

00:35:44.380 I I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. I believe in wealth creation, but the one thing

00:35:50.080 that we have to recognize that capitalism hasn't been great in sharing wealth equally. And so that's

00:35:56.940 why I think we need to start thinking about, you know, a, a snap program out of Canada, uh, instead

00:36:03.700 of just sending out checks and grocery rebates and hoping for the best that's, it can just only make

00:36:09.700 things worse, unfortunately. So we need to be strategic about food affordability. And right now

00:36:13.720 I I'm afraid we're not. All right, Sylvain, thank you very much for your time. Wise words as always

00:36:20.120 listening to, uh, uh, to you. Um, and we'll, we'll talk again soon. I'm sure. Take care, Brian.

00:36:27.160 Full comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced

00:36:32.600 by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe

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Full Comment - July 17, 2023

Price-fixing at Canada’s grocery stores is bigger than just bread

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