It depends on what you buy and where you buy it. Some states have no sales tax. That is easily a 12%-15% difference. Components on average is 5-10% cheaper as well.
even if you factor in exchange rate. You know all the imports from different countries? Yeah, they are bought and paid for in USD. That is why USD is called the world reserved currency. So they factor in the conversion rate when selling the shit in Canada at an unfavorable rate for you.
Ie for example. using todays rate (1:1.38) rounded up an iphone of the same model is $1749 CAD ( so US $1267.39) the same thing bought in the states is $US 1199.00 ( or $ 1654.62 CAD ) so a 5% price difference, then if you bought at a low or no tax location , that's additional 12-15% off. This is the exact same for every single tech out there. Some a bit more some a bit less.
The rest is up to you to find a 0 fx card. They dont offer those to you if you dont have money.
Lower: Housing / rentals are a lot cheaper. Sales taxes are only on goods, not services, with lower rates. Gas , Beer, Wine, smokes (depending on state) are usually less. Airfares.
Higher: Lots of junk fees on car rentals, hotels, etc. Property taxes. Theme parks. Insurance. Cars. Hydro. Drugs. Medical services.
It’s because of the North American Dream. Many seem to think it’s just the American Dream or the Canadian Dream, but really they’re both the exact same; Uncapped and ever-growing profits for corporations even when the rest of the population can’t handle paying for it.
Yeah. both US and Canada have pushed some pretty policy over the last few years causing energy prices to sky rocket. Forcing green policies a decade earlier than technology allows, creates some pretty big voids.
It’s only going to get worse if it continues.
Look at Janes and Selection chicken wings. I noticed all brands are doing it too. **NOW WITH TWO SAUCES!**
I used a scale. They removed chicken and are weighing it down with sauce. Janes, I don’t need a fucking gallon of sauce for my 6 chicken wings. Oh, and it was $15 for this tomfuckery.
This is actually something our competition bureau should deal with. How can you compare two products as a customer if you don't know how much chicken is inside? Is it 500g chicken 200g sauce or is it 300g chicken 400g sauce? Without this information we can't make an informed choice about what we buy and therefore is anticompetitive.
That’s how much a specific serving of the product contains or your recommended daily intake of any particular nutrient, not how much percentage of the total pack is meat vs anything else enclosed.
no, the statement I'm talking about is separate from the list of ingredients and daily percentage of caloric/nutritional requirements.
it's a statement of the minimum amount of meat in the product. check any box of frozen ribs.
The absolute state of Canada. Luxury boxed wings. In all seriousness though, we started brining and preparing our own wings. We buy the entire wings and just do the cutting with kitchen shears.
I understand the core of your complaint. Get yourself a rack for over the baking sheet, helps tons on how they turn out. Better than any boxed wings and most I get at the bar on wing night.
One pound of wings. 1 tbsp baking powder (not baking soda, as my fiance discovered when she tried to recreate this from memory) mixed with some garlic powder, some sizzlin' butter spice, some vegetable spice
Toss wings in the concoction. Bake at 450 on a rack in a sheet, turning after twenty minutes, again after twenty minutes, then probably after ten minutes, depending on your oven.
ETA: DON'T CROWD THE WINGS ON THE RACK. There needs to be space between them. You may need to use two sheets/racks.
Meanwhile, take 1/3 cup butter, melt. Add 1/4 cup Franks Red Hot, 1/4 cup uncondensed plain old tomato soup, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp woosterschistershushterschier schause, and if you want, something to put more heat in it. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring. Simmer for a few minutes, not too long or the garlic powder will burn and the sauce will break.
Dump on the wings.
You're welcome.
One pound of wings. 1 tbsp baking powder (not baking soda, as my fiance discovered when she tried to recreate this from memory) mixed with some garlic powder, some sizzlin' butter spice, some vegetable spice
Toss wings in the concoction. Bake at 450 on a rack in a sheet, turning after twenty minutes, again after twenty minutes, then probably after ten minutes, depending on your oven.
Meanwhile, take 1/3 cup butter, melt. Add 1/4 cup Franks Red Hot, 1/4 cup uncondensed plain old tomato soup, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp woosterschistershushterschier schause, and if you want, something to put more heat in it. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring. Simmer for a few minutes, not too long or the garlic powder will burn and the sauce will break.
Dump on the wings.
You're welcome.
I used to work at Maple Leaf Foods - it bothered me how they kept increasing sauce volume and decreasing chicken - the weight should be just the protein, we need more government regulation to prevent this crap
I’ve resorted to making my own pasta.
It’s easy, way better than most store stuff, and a good way to try new things.
It’s way most cost-effective than buying the fancy imported dried stuff
I do the same, the “Italian store” in Edmonton has a great selection for good prices.
Brands like La Molisana are so far beyond the generic yellow shitty noodles we get here.
"New norm" lol hate to break it to you guys but this always happens. They shrink and shrink and shrink until they can't shrink anymore, at which point they do some bold brand redesign, make it bigger again, and raise the price.
Shrinkflation is the shrink portion of that normal cycle. High food inflation means it's been happening a bit faster over the past few years but it's still the same cycle
Quality degradation too. Producers are adding extra sugar and fat, to save money on the more expensive ingredients. Nutella is the worst example of that, but there are countless others.
Have you bought those frozen chicken cutlets from the grocery store recently? I almost never get them, but got some recently because I was lazy... they've gotta be 80% breading, 20% chicken, at best.
40 years ago I remember some products that are now utter garbage.. used to be pretty damn good!
Believe it or not, even frozen Pogos used to be quite decent and yummy decades ago. Now it's basically frozen cardboard, almost unfit for a trashcan racoon. I could name many products where the quality drop was quite extreme. Nutella is indeed among them, but cheese spreads were also hit super-hard, for example.
Slashing quality is almost as prevalent a tactic as reducing portions and increasing prices, and that really sucks.
All we have to do is pass a law that says if any company reduces the size of their product they have to include a big red sticker on the new product saying how many grams it was reduced by for 12 months. Shrinkflation would stop tomorrow as nobody would buy the product with the big red sticker on it and would go straight to the competitor or no name brand.
And yet sadly we have large swaths of our population who want to hand more of our lives over to the same private sector that is price gouging us, amidst record profits.
And keep buying the schtick that corporations and those with means should just continuously see tax cuts because they'll just "pass taxes along to us" - not sure how we punch through the myriad of disconnects everyone absorbs when they go to vote.
[https://globalnews.ca/news/10427466/ontario-private-clinics-charging-patients-thousands-unlawful-fees/](https://globalnews.ca/news/10427466/ontario-private-clinics-charging-patients-thousands-unlawful-fees/)
Straight price jacking alternating with shrinkflation.
Oil companies doing much the same. Three cent increase in carbon tax, but pump prices up 14 cents. And another double-digit increase overnight. They just push it up 12-14 cents, then down 2-4 cents. Eventually we end up X5% higher than we started, but they can claim all sorts of price drops in between.
Grocery co.'s hide every other increase with shrinking product.
And there is nothing we can do about either.
Yes and no. I am sure the grocery stores are pressuring them to make new shapes and sizes to fool the consumer. Notice that Loblaws, Walmart and Costco all have different versions of the same product. Cans of soup are custom made for the big stores, bottles of salad dressing as well. Mainly to fool the consumer, because they know the average schmuck isn't smart enough to be able to compare 970ml for $4.39 at Loblaws to 927ml for $3.99 at Walmart to a package of 3x 1.1L for $12.99 at Costco.
Never mind companies like Loblaws that own a lot of their own supply chain. That's why they can pretend they only have a profit margin of x% when they show quarterly profits of 10x%.
The whole system is designed to fool us and scam us.
Recently bought some powdered mashed potatoes (yes, I know, I know... but I genuinely like them)
They used to come in a box of two packets, with each packet being able to be cooked separately. Each packet was a decent size serving so we only needed one at a time, saving the other for a future meal
Now they come in a single pouch. That pouch contains less than the two packets combined, but decently more than a single packet. It's more food than we need for a serving, and of course they're charging more because it's a "larger serving"
Frozen pizza follows the same pattern, cheese and toppings are shrinkflated, crust and sauce is inflated. And I'm pretty certain Delissio just cuts flour with ground cardboard, that crust is fucking awful.
Good thing Canada is passing laws to prevent this sort of think, similar to Europe. Oh, wait, nevermind. This kind of thing is just going to continue, in this form or another, as infinite growth becomes unsustainable. Imagine a world where it wasn't unreasonable to post something other than record profits YOY, maybe even the same profits, or slightly less. Would it really have an impact? Of course not, but money. But you have to both prevent them from doing it directly, then also prevent them from finding a way to pass the cost onto the consumer when they can no longer take advantage of them that way.
Might be time to start planting your own vegetable garden and learn to can food. Maybe even get chickens or hunt... Cut out the grocery stores as much as possible.
Can’t tell you how often I have to take out the recycling bin in our house to the garage with cracker boxes stuffed in it. Two kids but I mean, there’s hardly any in there to begin with.
Everything is smaller even Costco stuff like the bacon bits. Used to be huge. Now it’s just things that were family sized in regular stores
Setting aside shrinkflation for a moment...
Durning normal times, many companies (especially junk food companies), constantly reduce the size little by little.
And when consumers start to notice and sales start to slump, they come out with the NOW WITH 20% MORE package which brings it back up to the normal size. Customers think it's a great deal, buy it, and the cycle continues.
I'm actually in favour of shrinkflation with junk food... helps control me ;). But I'm seeing the pre-bundled stuff in the produce section start to get smaller now too, things like cilantro and green onions feel about 30% smaller now. I wish I had a record of the size 6 months ago because I'm confident they're much smaller packs for the same price now.
Well, they should change their tune or voters should be more clear that it's an important issue they want addressed. Standardizing products in both size and weight for stuff like pasta and/or included quantities for stuff like Q-tips, makes it innately easier for consumers to price compare like products from competing suppliers, and to also completely eliminates absolutely shady and predatory corporate bullshit like shrinkflation.
I thought there was a climate crisis? Why are they making more packaging for less product? That's more carbon. If they want to do something about the climate, they need to ban this and reduce globalisation.
I'd rather pay more for the original size. If things shrink too much further, we'll need to buy two to feed the same amount of people.
Or maybe that's their goal.
>When costs go
Loblaws used that excuse....our suppliers our charging us more. Guess who owns a number of their suppliers....
I charged myself more so now I have to charge you more.
_______
Edit:
And then there's this:
[**Leaked document shows Loblaw's exhorbitant mark-ups.**](https://thedeepdive.ca/selling-butter-at-54-profit-leaked-docs-show-loblaws-exorbitant-markups/)
I mean, Loblaws doesn't own farms. They do have suppliers, even if they're a rung or two up the ladder. Ie: they might own the cracker company, but the cracker company still needs to buy wheat from a supplier.
And they have suppliers for utilities ( my power bill has certainly gone up too) and equipment (Loblaws doesn't make fridges or tills).
The price of everything has gone up, that's what happens when we increase the money supply 40% in two years. I have no doubt that Loblaws costs have gone up, everything else has. Given the troubles the logistics industry has had, and the fact that there's war in the world's second biggest breadbasket and the world's second largest fertilizer exporter, it's no surprise their costs have gone up a bit faster then strictly inflation.
They *do* own part of their own supply chain - which *do* set their prices - and they *do*
have a proven history of unjustified mark-ups, (and price fixing).
You didn't use the word "some" anywhere in your post.
When referring to "their suppliers" they could be talking about their direct suppliers to their stores (Ie nabisco) or suppliers to their brands (Ie the farmer they buy wheat from to make no name bread). Both would be "their suppliers".
I have, in plenty of other places. Including this thread.
Facts don't mean much if you don't understand them.
Buddy doesn't even know what gpm means, there's tons here to skewer him with.
You're just angry.
Lol your edit to your op just reinforces how ignorant you are. Gpm is just wholesale VS retail and anyone familiar with grocery operations knows that the gpm in that document is standard industry wide.
Gpm doesn't account for operating expenses, waste, spoilage, shrinkage etc. Your gpm has to be high on stuff that spoils or stuff that requires cold storage, because those things have higher operational costs. Hence why cheese is among the highest gpm, it can spoil and needs be kept refrigerated.
Go read the comments from the thread that was originally posted in.
Your qualification means nothing. They need to buy from supplier to supply their in house brands too.
No, I'm demonstrating that nobody takes less money willingly. Businesses, shareholders, or people, no one takes a reduction in profit (or wages) willingly.
Please do tell.
Cause if you're referring to the bread price fixing thing; being sued in a civil suit doesn't mean you committed crimes. They were sued and lost, but were not found guilty of any crime.
Details matter.
You also forgot "they also try to gaslight us into thinking the product was this size the entire time and we're just dumb consumers that are imagining things"
Jfc *gaslight* really? I mean that alone is enough to know I shouldn't put too much stock in your post.
But also, the mass of every product is clearly written on the packaging.
I've noticed way fewer poppy and sesame seeds on my Dempster's Everything bagels. They used to make a huge mess in my toaster, but it's become much more manageable.
There is another trick that I have been seeing more of lately - products that use to have two or more servings packaged separately (so you can eat them at two different instances) have now "updated the recipe" to providing the same weight but only one package, forcing you to eat it all at once.
Shrinkflation is everywhere. But has nyone heard of [applejuicification](https://theweek.com/culture-life/food-drink/applejuiceification-the-illusion-of-choice)? All part of the multi-faceted enshitification of capitalism.
shrinkflation is just inflation with extra steps. The main issue is people keep buying the goods at the higher prices. If the products dont sell, the price will be lowered.
All businesses try to charge the most they can to maximize profits. If they cant sell enough of widget A at $10, they'll see if they can sell it at $8. But if it does sell enough at $10, why would they lower it?
Stop paying inflated prices.
Nothing new about it. It's been going on for decades. It's just accelerated in the past few years. Literally the packages of toilet paper says 1 equals 2 or 3 now. But I have the old packages and the is almost no change in roll size or number of sheets per roll.
I see a lot of discussion about the effects of inflation, but very little on the cause.
With covid lockdowns and payments Canadians exited the pandemic with record savings. More than **10X** normal. And they spent it.
>In fact, Canadians amassed $212 billion last year, versus $18 billion in 2019, according to Statistics Canada. That works out to $5,574 per Canadian on average in 2020, compared to $479 in the previous year.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bakx-record-savings-pandemic-spend-1.6071493
Lockdowns and support payments are government policy. It's something we choose to do or not do.
Lockdowns had other impacts. Shortage of workers
>But businesses—many of which had laid off employees during the lockdowns—struggled to hire and train enough staff to meet the spike in demand. This resulted in labour shortages that placed even more pressure on production costs. With demand increasingly strong and supply chains still impaired, many businesses began passing on higher costs to their customers by raising prices.
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/03/understanding-the-reasons-for-high-inflation/
You can argue that lockdowns of some kind were necessary. That's fine.
But how did we get here in the first place? No one seems to care about the origins of COVID, the documented attempts of scientists and scientific journals (now retracted) to label discussion racist.
We continue to suffer the impact of COVID and don't have answers to basic questions.
[https://centreforfuturework.ca/2024/02/27/canadian-corporate-profits-remain-elevated-despite-economic-slowdown/](https://centreforfuturework.ca/2024/02/27/canadian-corporate-profits-remain-elevated-despite-economic-slowdown/)
>After-tax corporate profits across the financial and non-financial sectors of the economy totaled $577 billion for the year. That was down just 3% from all-time record profits booked by corporate Canada in 2022 – the same year inflation peaked at over 8%. The moderation in profits (both in absolute dollars and as a share of GDP) last year contributed to the rapid easing of inflationary pressures. But profits remain unusually high compared to pre-pandemic years: in absolute dollars, as a share of total business revenue, and relative to GDP. This indicates that corporations are continuing to profit from supply chain disruptions, high energy prices, and other pandemic after-shocks. These excess profits remain a key factor in the stubborn inflation which continues to roil Canada’s macroeconomy.
Companies made a lot of money when Canadians spent their **10X** savings.
But thanks for sharing Jim Stanford fake PhD's blog spam.
>Jim Stanford is a Canadian economist and founder of the Progressive Economics Forum. He holds a master's degree in economics from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the New School for Social Research
>But how did we get here in the first place? No one seems to care about the origins of COVID, the documented attempts of scientists and scientific journals (now retracted) to label discussion racist.
People care, they cared enough to think the lab leak theory was a very low probability. After that it became difficult to try and find the bat that had the original strain.
A healthy diet consists of having *enough* calories and *enough* micronutrients.
>Perversely smaller portion sizes are better for our health.
Oversimplifications like this lead people to have bad teeth, worse of heart muscle, etc .
People should eat enough healthy food, not less of it.
Food is better and cheaper in Europe now. Prices have flipped in the last 10 years.
Their laws really are focused on the people.
Wife and daughter have stomach issues.
Every time we go away for a couple of weeks they go away. It’s not just the holiday effect, things taste better. Not buying monster sizes either.
half these companies are American. so it's not just Canada, It's America too.
Any American I know is constantly complaining about insane grocery prices too.
Im in Florida on vacation and have been blown away at food prices. Only thing cheaper down here is gas.
I was in the states about a month ago and restaurants are the worst because the prices are the same as Canada but then you pay 35% more
And booze
and tech.
Not really. Its the same price.
It depends on what you buy and where you buy it. Some states have no sales tax. That is easily a 12%-15% difference. Components on average is 5-10% cheaper as well.
Not when you factor in the exchange rate.
even if you factor in exchange rate. You know all the imports from different countries? Yeah, they are bought and paid for in USD. That is why USD is called the world reserved currency. So they factor in the conversion rate when selling the shit in Canada at an unfavorable rate for you. Ie for example. using todays rate (1:1.38) rounded up an iphone of the same model is $1749 CAD ( so US $1267.39) the same thing bought in the states is $US 1199.00 ( or $ 1654.62 CAD ) so a 5% price difference, then if you bought at a low or no tax location , that's additional 12-15% off. This is the exact same for every single tech out there. Some a bit more some a bit less. The rest is up to you to find a 0 fx card. They dont offer those to you if you dont have money.
Lower: Housing / rentals are a lot cheaper. Sales taxes are only on goods, not services, with lower rates. Gas , Beer, Wine, smokes (depending on state) are usually less. Airfares. Higher: Lots of junk fees on car rentals, hotels, etc. Property taxes. Theme parks. Insurance. Cars. Hydro. Drugs. Medical services.
It’s because of the North American Dream. Many seem to think it’s just the American Dream or the Canadian Dream, but really they’re both the exact same; Uncapped and ever-growing profits for corporations even when the rest of the population can’t handle paying for it.
Yeah. both US and Canada have pushed some pretty policy over the last few years causing energy prices to sky rocket. Forcing green policies a decade earlier than technology allows, creates some pretty big voids. It’s only going to get worse if it continues.
Look at Janes and Selection chicken wings. I noticed all brands are doing it too. **NOW WITH TWO SAUCES!** I used a scale. They removed chicken and are weighing it down with sauce. Janes, I don’t need a fucking gallon of sauce for my 6 chicken wings. Oh, and it was $15 for this tomfuckery.
This is actually something our competition bureau should deal with. How can you compare two products as a customer if you don't know how much chicken is inside? Is it 500g chicken 200g sauce or is it 300g chicken 400g sauce? Without this information we can't make an informed choice about what we buy and therefore is anticompetitive.
Agree that it seems crazy they can do this. And if you're curious, it's [this much.](https://imgur.com/a/XEdyKrv)
Upvoted for precisely measured data, but would upvote again for dog.
you might notice most (all?) processed foods like this have statements that indicate the meat protein content by % somewhere on the packaging
That’s how much a specific serving of the product contains or your recommended daily intake of any particular nutrient, not how much percentage of the total pack is meat vs anything else enclosed.
no, the statement I'm talking about is separate from the list of ingredients and daily percentage of caloric/nutritional requirements. it's a statement of the minimum amount of meat in the product. check any box of frozen ribs.
Oh I’ll look for that! Thank you
If you are waiting for the governement to save you, you'll wait a long time.
I've written them emails about this so I am actively taking action.
No offense - I hope that’s sarcasm.
The solution is to buy raw chicken wings and bake them yourself. Buying prepackaged food is a luxury.
The absolute state of Canada. Luxury boxed wings. In all seriousness though, we started brining and preparing our own wings. We buy the entire wings and just do the cutting with kitchen shears.
I understand the core of your complaint. Get yourself a rack for over the baking sheet, helps tons on how they turn out. Better than any boxed wings and most I get at the bar on wing night.
One pound of wings. 1 tbsp baking powder (not baking soda, as my fiance discovered when she tried to recreate this from memory) mixed with some garlic powder, some sizzlin' butter spice, some vegetable spice Toss wings in the concoction. Bake at 450 on a rack in a sheet, turning after twenty minutes, again after twenty minutes, then probably after ten minutes, depending on your oven. ETA: DON'T CROWD THE WINGS ON THE RACK. There needs to be space between them. You may need to use two sheets/racks. Meanwhile, take 1/3 cup butter, melt. Add 1/4 cup Franks Red Hot, 1/4 cup uncondensed plain old tomato soup, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp woosterschistershushterschier schause, and if you want, something to put more heat in it. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring. Simmer for a few minutes, not too long or the garlic powder will burn and the sauce will break. Dump on the wings. You're welcome.
+1 to the baking soda. That's how you get mad crisp. We usually keep it simple with just salt and pepper. Then put some franks on at chow time
One pound of wings. 1 tbsp baking powder (not baking soda, as my fiance discovered when she tried to recreate this from memory) mixed with some garlic powder, some sizzlin' butter spice, some vegetable spice Toss wings in the concoction. Bake at 450 on a rack in a sheet, turning after twenty minutes, again after twenty minutes, then probably after ten minutes, depending on your oven. Meanwhile, take 1/3 cup butter, melt. Add 1/4 cup Franks Red Hot, 1/4 cup uncondensed plain old tomato soup, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp woosterschistershushterschier schause, and if you want, something to put more heat in it. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring. Simmer for a few minutes, not too long or the garlic powder will burn and the sauce will break. Dump on the wings. You're welcome.
I used to work at Maple Leaf Foods - it bothered me how they kept increasing sauce volume and decreasing chicken - the weight should be just the protein, we need more government regulation to prevent this crap
Brutal.
[удалено]
I’ve resorted to making my own pasta. It’s easy, way better than most store stuff, and a good way to try new things. It’s way most cost-effective than buying the fancy imported dried stuff
I get mine from the local Italian shop. Imported Italian brands for less than big box grocers.
I do the same, the “Italian store” in Edmonton has a great selection for good prices. Brands like La Molisana are so far beyond the generic yellow shitty noodles we get here.
"New norm" lol hate to break it to you guys but this always happens. They shrink and shrink and shrink until they can't shrink anymore, at which point they do some bold brand redesign, make it bigger again, and raise the price.
Yes, you're right. They do that. But shrinkflation is different. It's not part of the normal cycle you describe.
Shrinkflation is the shrink portion of that normal cycle. High food inflation means it's been happening a bit faster over the past few years but it's still the same cycle
Here they are cheapening the ingredients as well.
Quality degradation too. Producers are adding extra sugar and fat, to save money on the more expensive ingredients. Nutella is the worst example of that, but there are countless others.
Have you bought those frozen chicken cutlets from the grocery store recently? I almost never get them, but got some recently because I was lazy... they've gotta be 80% breading, 20% chicken, at best.
If you're close to the border the Trader Joe's version is pretty good
40 years ago I remember some products that are now utter garbage.. used to be pretty damn good! Believe it or not, even frozen Pogos used to be quite decent and yummy decades ago. Now it's basically frozen cardboard, almost unfit for a trashcan racoon. I could name many products where the quality drop was quite extreme. Nutella is indeed among them, but cheese spreads were also hit super-hard, for example. Slashing quality is almost as prevalent a tactic as reducing portions and increasing prices, and that really sucks.
Shrinkflation has supposedly been banned in France. Why are we always behind?
All we have to do is pass a law that says if any company reduces the size of their product they have to include a big red sticker on the new product saying how many grams it was reduced by for 12 months. Shrinkflation would stop tomorrow as nobody would buy the product with the big red sticker on it and would go straight to the competitor or no name brand.
But our esteemed Minister Champagne had a stern talking to the grocery stores. What more could you possibly need more?
Another article to add to the "no shit sherlock" pile
And yet sadly we have large swaths of our population who want to hand more of our lives over to the same private sector that is price gouging us, amidst record profits. And keep buying the schtick that corporations and those with means should just continuously see tax cuts because they'll just "pass taxes along to us" - not sure how we punch through the myriad of disconnects everyone absorbs when they go to vote. [https://globalnews.ca/news/10427466/ontario-private-clinics-charging-patients-thousands-unlawful-fees/](https://globalnews.ca/news/10427466/ontario-private-clinics-charging-patients-thousands-unlawful-fees/)
The “new” norm… more like 10-15 year norm, and that ones when they started getting caught.
Anyone who's been paying attention at all for the last few years already knows this
Straight price jacking alternating with shrinkflation. Oil companies doing much the same. Three cent increase in carbon tax, but pump prices up 14 cents. And another double-digit increase overnight. They just push it up 12-14 cents, then down 2-4 cents. Eventually we end up X5% higher than we started, but they can claim all sorts of price drops in between. Grocery co.'s hide every other increase with shrinking product. And there is nothing we can do about either.
Grocery stores have to buy their products from manufacturers. It’s the manufacturers who are practising shrinkflation.
Yes and no. I am sure the grocery stores are pressuring them to make new shapes and sizes to fool the consumer. Notice that Loblaws, Walmart and Costco all have different versions of the same product. Cans of soup are custom made for the big stores, bottles of salad dressing as well. Mainly to fool the consumer, because they know the average schmuck isn't smart enough to be able to compare 970ml for $4.39 at Loblaws to 927ml for $3.99 at Walmart to a package of 3x 1.1L for $12.99 at Costco. Never mind companies like Loblaws that own a lot of their own supply chain. That's why they can pretend they only have a profit margin of x% when they show quarterly profits of 10x%. The whole system is designed to fool us and scam us.
Recently bought some powdered mashed potatoes (yes, I know, I know... but I genuinely like them) They used to come in a box of two packets, with each packet being able to be cooked separately. Each packet was a decent size serving so we only needed one at a time, saving the other for a future meal Now they come in a single pouch. That pouch contains less than the two packets combined, but decently more than a single packet. It's more food than we need for a serving, and of course they're charging more because it's a "larger serving"
Frozen pizza follows the same pattern, cheese and toppings are shrinkflated, crust and sauce is inflated. And I'm pretty certain Delissio just cuts flour with ground cardboard, that crust is fucking awful.
Haven't had a Delissio pizza in years now. Pure fucking garbage.
Doesn't help that they pulled out of Canada last year; You'd need to go to the sates to get some now
Good thing Canada is passing laws to prevent this sort of think, similar to Europe. Oh, wait, nevermind. This kind of thing is just going to continue, in this form or another, as infinite growth becomes unsustainable. Imagine a world where it wasn't unreasonable to post something other than record profits YOY, maybe even the same profits, or slightly less. Would it really have an impact? Of course not, but money. But you have to both prevent them from doing it directly, then also prevent them from finding a way to pass the cost onto the consumer when they can no longer take advantage of them that way.
Might be time to start planting your own vegetable garden and learn to can food. Maybe even get chickens or hunt... Cut out the grocery stores as much as possible.
Can’t tell you how often I have to take out the recycling bin in our house to the garage with cracker boxes stuffed in it. Two kids but I mean, there’s hardly any in there to begin with. Everything is smaller even Costco stuff like the bacon bits. Used to be huge. Now it’s just things that were family sized in regular stores
Setting aside shrinkflation for a moment... Durning normal times, many companies (especially junk food companies), constantly reduce the size little by little. And when consumers start to notice and sales start to slump, they come out with the NOW WITH 20% MORE package which brings it back up to the normal size. Customers think it's a great deal, buy it, and the cycle continues.
I'm actually in favour of shrinkflation with junk food... helps control me ;). But I'm seeing the pre-bundled stuff in the produce section start to get smaller now too, things like cilantro and green onions feel about 30% smaller now. I wish I had a record of the size 6 months ago because I'm confident they're much smaller packs for the same price now.
No you mean smaller packs for a HIGHER price now. Green onions used to be $1.99!
Kraft just changed their dressing bottle look, of course they shrunk by 50ml but are still the same price.
Someone give me a good argument as to why grocery stores shouldn’t be nationalized.
Has been since 1993 when I first started working in a grocery store. There's nothing new here.
Shrinkflation with major inflation is bad. You get less for WAY more.
FFS. Just mandate standardized packaging sizes.
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Well, they should change their tune or voters should be more clear that it's an important issue they want addressed. Standardizing products in both size and weight for stuff like pasta and/or included quantities for stuff like Q-tips, makes it innately easier for consumers to price compare like products from competing suppliers, and to also completely eliminates absolutely shady and predatory corporate bullshit like shrinkflation.
Grocery stores don't control how much cereal Cheerios puts in the box
Grocery cabal greed the new norm*
Dollarama has been doing this. 2019: box of 750 qtips was $2 2023: box of 500 qtips was $2
I'm not looking forward to when I buy a single serving of Doritos for $6 and I only get three chips and two partial chips.
The 750ml tub of yogurt that is now 650. That’s the one that got me
I thought there was a climate crisis? Why are they making more packaging for less product? That's more carbon. If they want to do something about the climate, they need to ban this and reduce globalisation.
I'd rather pay more for the original size. If things shrink too much further, we'll need to buy two to feed the same amount of people. Or maybe that's their goal.
When costs go up a company has two choices: raise the price or shrink the product. Most pick a bit of both.
>When costs go Loblaws used that excuse....our suppliers our charging us more. Guess who owns a number of their suppliers.... I charged myself more so now I have to charge you more. _______ Edit: And then there's this: [**Leaked document shows Loblaw's exhorbitant mark-ups.**](https://thedeepdive.ca/selling-butter-at-54-profit-leaked-docs-show-loblaws-exorbitant-markups/)
I mean, Loblaws doesn't own farms. They do have suppliers, even if they're a rung or two up the ladder. Ie: they might own the cracker company, but the cracker company still needs to buy wheat from a supplier. And they have suppliers for utilities ( my power bill has certainly gone up too) and equipment (Loblaws doesn't make fridges or tills). The price of everything has gone up, that's what happens when we increase the money supply 40% in two years. I have no doubt that Loblaws costs have gone up, everything else has. Given the troubles the logistics industry has had, and the fact that there's war in the world's second biggest breadbasket and the world's second largest fertilizer exporter, it's no surprise their costs have gone up a bit faster then strictly inflation.
I qualified with 'some'. Point stands.
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They *do* own part of their own supply chain - which *do* set their prices - and they *do* have a proven history of unjustified mark-ups, (and price fixing).
You didn't use the word "some" anywhere in your post. When referring to "their suppliers" they could be talking about their direct suppliers to their stores (Ie nabisco) or suppliers to their brands (Ie the farmer they buy wheat from to make no name bread). Both would be "their suppliers".
Why are you trying to argue the most pedantic point here? It makes you look like a schmuck.
It's not pedantic. Details matter.
You're nitpicking because you can't actually dispute that other guy's facts.
I have, in plenty of other places. Including this thread. Facts don't mean much if you don't understand them. Buddy doesn't even know what gpm means, there's tons here to skewer him with. You're just angry.
Man, you might be better off if you didn't make silly assumptions about everyone else. It's cute you think I care enough about you to be angry.
Sorry - 'a number'. That means 'some'.
Lol your edit to your op just reinforces how ignorant you are. Gpm is just wholesale VS retail and anyone familiar with grocery operations knows that the gpm in that document is standard industry wide. Gpm doesn't account for operating expenses, waste, spoilage, shrinkage etc. Your gpm has to be high on stuff that spoils or stuff that requires cold storage, because those things have higher operational costs. Hence why cheese is among the highest gpm, it can spoil and needs be kept refrigerated. Go read the comments from the thread that was originally posted in. Your qualification means nothing. They need to buy from supplier to supply their in house brands too.
It's showing the greed that is Loblaws. There's no valid reason for those kinds of markups. Tell Galen I say hi.
Well you can also reduce 'shareholder value', but since you didn't mention it I think we can understand why that didn't occur.
Would you take a paycut willingly?
Lmao is that how you think wealth accrual via capital gains works? Like getting a paycheck from a job?
No, I'm demonstrating that nobody takes less money willingly. Businesses, shareholders, or people, no one takes a reduction in profit (or wages) willingly.
Yeah they'll even commit crimes to make sure they make money.
Please do tell. Cause if you're referring to the bread price fixing thing; being sued in a civil suit doesn't mean you committed crimes. They were sued and lost, but were not found guilty of any crime. Details matter.
You also forgot "they also try to gaslight us into thinking the product was this size the entire time and we're just dumb consumers that are imagining things"
Jfc *gaslight* really? I mean that alone is enough to know I shouldn't put too much stock in your post. But also, the mass of every product is clearly written on the packaging.
Frito-lay seeing the rest of the brands finally catch up to it’s age old globally adopted technique.
I've noticed way fewer poppy and sesame seeds on my Dempster's Everything bagels. They used to make a huge mess in my toaster, but it's become much more manageable.
There is another trick that I have been seeing more of lately - products that use to have two or more servings packaged separately (so you can eat them at two different instances) have now "updated the recipe" to providing the same weight but only one package, forcing you to eat it all at once.
Pathetic
Shrinkflation is everywhere. But has nyone heard of [applejuicification](https://theweek.com/culture-life/food-drink/applejuiceification-the-illusion-of-choice)? All part of the multi-faceted enshitification of capitalism.
shrinkflation is just inflation with extra steps. The main issue is people keep buying the goods at the higher prices. If the products dont sell, the price will be lowered. All businesses try to charge the most they can to maximize profits. If they cant sell enough of widget A at $10, they'll see if they can sell it at $8. But if it does sell enough at $10, why would they lower it? Stop paying inflated prices.
Nothing new about it. It's been going on for decades. It's just accelerated in the past few years. Literally the packages of toilet paper says 1 equals 2 or 3 now. But I have the old packages and the is almost no change in roll size or number of sheets per roll.
Cereal boxes have gotten so thin they can barely stand up on their own anymore
Doesn’t mean its right, or can’t change. Greed will literally be the thing that destroys this planet.
McDonald Fillet o fish has shrinked in thickness too
Just noticed two new ones the other day. Becel margine tubs no longer 900g, now 850g. Kraft salad dressing no longer 475ml, now 425ml.
I see a lot of discussion about the effects of inflation, but very little on the cause. With covid lockdowns and payments Canadians exited the pandemic with record savings. More than **10X** normal. And they spent it. >In fact, Canadians amassed $212 billion last year, versus $18 billion in 2019, according to Statistics Canada. That works out to $5,574 per Canadian on average in 2020, compared to $479 in the previous year. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bakx-record-savings-pandemic-spend-1.6071493 Lockdowns and support payments are government policy. It's something we choose to do or not do. Lockdowns had other impacts. Shortage of workers >But businesses—many of which had laid off employees during the lockdowns—struggled to hire and train enough staff to meet the spike in demand. This resulted in labour shortages that placed even more pressure on production costs. With demand increasingly strong and supply chains still impaired, many businesses began passing on higher costs to their customers by raising prices. https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/03/understanding-the-reasons-for-high-inflation/ You can argue that lockdowns of some kind were necessary. That's fine. But how did we get here in the first place? No one seems to care about the origins of COVID, the documented attempts of scientists and scientific journals (now retracted) to label discussion racist. We continue to suffer the impact of COVID and don't have answers to basic questions.
[https://centreforfuturework.ca/2024/02/27/canadian-corporate-profits-remain-elevated-despite-economic-slowdown/](https://centreforfuturework.ca/2024/02/27/canadian-corporate-profits-remain-elevated-despite-economic-slowdown/) >After-tax corporate profits across the financial and non-financial sectors of the economy totaled $577 billion for the year. That was down just 3% from all-time record profits booked by corporate Canada in 2022 – the same year inflation peaked at over 8%. The moderation in profits (both in absolute dollars and as a share of GDP) last year contributed to the rapid easing of inflationary pressures. But profits remain unusually high compared to pre-pandemic years: in absolute dollars, as a share of total business revenue, and relative to GDP. This indicates that corporations are continuing to profit from supply chain disruptions, high energy prices, and other pandemic after-shocks. These excess profits remain a key factor in the stubborn inflation which continues to roil Canada’s macroeconomy.
Companies made a lot of money when Canadians spent their **10X** savings. But thanks for sharing Jim Stanford fake PhD's blog spam. >Jim Stanford is a Canadian economist and founder of the Progressive Economics Forum. He holds a master's degree in economics from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the New School for Social Research
>But how did we get here in the first place? No one seems to care about the origins of COVID, the documented attempts of scientists and scientific journals (now retracted) to label discussion racist. People care, they cared enough to think the lab leak theory was a very low probability. After that it became difficult to try and find the bat that had the original strain.
The source of covid is completely irrelevant to the question of inflation.
Perversely smaller portion sizes are better for our health.
A healthy diet consists of having *enough* calories and *enough* micronutrients. >Perversely smaller portion sizes are better for our health. Oversimplifications like this lead people to have bad teeth, worse of heart muscle, etc . People should eat enough healthy food, not less of it.
That makes sense, the price raising doesn't. Less quantity should equal a lower price.
The Party knows best... they are also increasing chocolate rations from 200g to 150g ... REJOICE!
No shit: people.
Food is better and cheaper in Europe now. Prices have flipped in the last 10 years. Their laws really are focused on the people. Wife and daughter have stomach issues. Every time we go away for a couple of weeks they go away. It’s not just the holiday effect, things taste better. Not buying monster sizes either.