Western Standard - January 05, 2024


The good, bad & ugly of retail grocers


Episode Stats


Length

1 minute

Words per minute

139.29314

Word count

268

Sentence count

17


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of the update, I talk about whether or not there is any evidence of "gouging" by Canadian food retailers. I discuss the evidence and why I think there is no evidence of this happening.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I've always asked some of the experts out there and politicians, well, if right now
00:00:07.040 companies are making too much money, how much is too much?
00:00:10.240 And we've never gotten a clear answer to that.
00:00:13.680 My answer to you clearly, Corey, when you look at the evidence, when you actually look
00:00:17.820 at verified, audited financial reports coming from companies, there is no evidence of gouging.
00:00:25.660 If you look at gross margins, which to me is probably the most important metric, you look
00:00:32.020 at revenues, you look at the cost of goods.
00:00:34.800 If that changes due to inflation, you'll notice, I mean, you'll notice.
00:00:40.160 And for the big three, Empire, Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro, all three gross margins have not
00:00:46.760 changed in five years.
00:00:48.760 And so that's why it's difficult to say, well, there's gouging going on.
00:00:53.060 However, and this is a big however, margins are actually quite high compared to the US.
00:00:59.780 They're double what they are in the US.
00:01:01.940 And we've seen some shortfalls in Ottawa with the bread price fixing scandal, for example,
00:01:09.340 the investigation being going on for eight years.
00:01:12.340 So I can't blame Canadians for being upset about what's going on.
00:01:20.060 I actually totally understand why they're upset because they feel unprotected.
00:01:25.580 But as far as gouging goes, just the evidence is just not there.
00:01:29.060 You can become a Western standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.
00:01:34.780 SOBRE THE REVIN MEDICAL
00:01:44.620 Well, I think I should read multiple and share opinions in certain areas.
00:01:49.440 Thanks for reading the update.
00:01:51.880 That meansatchening and потерating some resources.
00:01:53.440 Thanks.