Canadian Government pushes for Grocery Competition Code; Loblaw and Walmart Resist
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by food distribution expert Cory Friesen to talk about the grocery code of conduct and how it may help the food distribution industry in Canada. Cory is a food distributor in the grocery industry and has been involved in the industry for a long time. He has been a long-time member of the Food Distribution Association of Canada, an industry association that represents food distribution suppliers across the country.
Transcript
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the the grocery code of conduct maybe if you could explain why
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something like that would be needed and and how it may help things
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yeah i know it's a hard sell for a lot of canadians because they think it's
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will uh give an opportunity to uh to suppliers to actually have a voice
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really and when you actually understand my field of expertise is food
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distribution and i have to say cory uh loblaws and walmart are just
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uh crushing the industry right now with their own rules
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with extra fees and let's say for example you have some
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new jam to sell the loblaw they'll charge you a hundred thousand dollars for it
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and if it's actually popular next year they'll actually double
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fees and and you're at the mercy of of the oligopoly so either say
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yes you you pay extra fees and you increase your own prices
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eventually or you walk away from your your most important customer
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so those are the two choices that most suppliers have right now the code of
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conduct will actually give a chance for suppliers to
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to be heard before an arbitrator to settle disputes with banners
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in theory academically this actually could work uh to increase competition
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because it will actually give a chance to suppliers and i know that are a lot of
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them in alberta really having a hard time with loblaw and walmart in particular
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uh it's it gives them a chance uh for for some for success really eventually
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now will it work we don't know i mean i think the the the easiest part
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to establish a code uh was was to get all five of them on board so costco walmart
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loblaw sobeys and and metro are all on board but will will there be compliance i have no idea if
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you actually send a fine to walmart will it pay the fine i don't know yeah i mean typically though
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an industry association would be preferred than having government come in and legislate i mean
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this is i i guess in a way it's if this doesn't work that's where the government's going
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to be tempted to come in and try and do that job exactly it avoids legislation and you do not want
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government to get involved you do not want government to get involved or else it's going
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to be a disaster so but a low-hanging fruit for you cory for the cra the canada revenue agency we are
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taxing right now 4 600 different food products why the hell are we taxing food in canada retail i
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have no idea and so that's a low-hanging fruit you can overnight change all that and stop taxing
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food so people can have access to salads and sandwiches at the grocery store right now because
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of shrinkflation more and more food is being taxed because they are considered snacks due to a smaller
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more and more food is being taxed because they are more oversized than before