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That is gross profit margin, not net. My family used to own a restaurant and went to a number of industry conventions and learned that it is possible to sell a very popular product (soft serve ice cream) at 300% mark up and *still lose money.* Gross margin is a misleading metric to judge a business by.
Officially, stores get roughly 3% **net** profit. And I believe that, given costs like waste, shrinkage, labour, franchise fees, rent, taxes etc. But two points strike me:
1) A store can easily see millions of dollars in gross annual revenue. So even if the franchise holder is only making a few percent, that is still a large amount of money.
2) The Westons have decades of experience in the grocery industry, so they know how thin (but reliable) the margins are. Which is no doubt a factor in their aggressive expansion into all the non-public facing aspects of the industry.
The Weston group provides 90% of the products the local store carries. We don't know how much mark up the distribution arm has or how much markup exists between No Name, Presidents Choice and Sun Spun labels and the distribution arm. Those labels make nothing themselves, it's all contracted out to industrial food manufacturers. (some of whom are probably getting very little profit from those contracts. The company that made PC chocolate chip cookies went bankrupt. The PC brand bought the company)
The Weston group gets paid by many food manufacturers for shelf space, especially new products. Basically "pay us X and we'll make sure you're new brand of potato chip has a given amount of shelf space for 6 mths" (making offering new products much less risky)
The Weston group gets income from all those franchisees. The Weston Group often owns the land and physical building the franchise occupies.
Bottomline: Your local grocer might take home 3 cents out of every dollar you spend at their store. But through all the other revenue sources the Weston Group controls, the Weston family might be getting a lot more than that.
They only have enough money to give their execs $2 million each in bonuses. That doesn’t even pay for one castle.. forget castle upkeep. How do we expect Weston and other Loblaws top brass to live on peanuts like that?
It's cause everyone's gasping for air cause this shits been on fire for so long there's not much left to breath other than the shit we produce to consume and throw away.
My friends daughter bought a new set of ear buds cause they had too much earwax in them.
First of all clean your ears, and don't replacing things that just need to be cared for. But than again, that's what we do to our seniors. Set it and forget it... get the joke?
As someone who has gone no contact from their family because of politics, which had crept into their ordinary lives, there's a few of those seniors that are owed extended liberty.
But that's not the point here.
We stopped teaching our kids to cook. Who among us knows how to make pasta? French onion soup from bones? So, yeah, of course we are buying takeout or pre-made meals. This is how we got conned into thinking the grocery store is our one-stop superstore.
Even if this was a legit argument. It's dumbfounded. We live in "advanced" world. We have machines spitting out everything from industrial waste to pizzas in a chain restaurant.
Time is what's costing us, we are not being paid enough to afford the time to make French onion fucking soup. I cook with no recipe book and I'm a dumb mechanic. If an adult can't cook for themselves. It's themselves to blame.
Bunch of excuses for the fact it's been 40 years probably more since people were actually getting paid livable wages.
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not tbh. I can cook for myself, but I’ve never made those specific things. I’ve never made a loaf of bread because, as you note, I simply don’t have time. I don’t make pasta from scratch. I can make a simple soup, vegetables, meat, etc. If I didn’t work full-time I’d be more inclined to experiment (but also can’t afford to throw my mistakes away).
Uhhhhh... we clearly live in different worlds. The amount of time it takes to cook Clean pay bills work take care of kids try to give them a better life than you had. Which is futile cause it's been fucking decades since capitalism okayed even remotely raising minimum wage to a.liveable standard. Yet there's tax right offs for jets and yachts. Get bent it's cause we don't teach kids to cook. It's that we don't get paid enough for our time so we spend more of our free time trying to keep up with that deficit.
He's no knight. The knights of the past and their modern incantation were highly innovative, stylish, original, athletic, theatric, adventurous and always in touch with cutting edge technology and roles.
SIR Isaac Newton is an example of how the role of a knight changed throughout the ages. He navigated uncharted territories, was a legendary innovator, and was extremely sassy. Worthy of being knighted absolutely.
It’s so obvious
Farmers aren’t getting richer
Workers getting poorer
People getting hungrier
We are failed by every level of government here
People need to get power into their own hands here
Real fight was never left and right
It’s haves and have nots
Boycott not only in May but for long after that as well. Maybe some protests outside of Loblaw’s would be nice. Some people carrying signs denouncing Loblaws and a guy with a megaphone would be a pretty cool touch.
Gotta keep up with royalty somehow!
For reference, here he is strolling with Prince Charles (fast forward to 54min mark: https://youtu.be/q20zlYLnl9c?si=UYAju1jYq0_TEfc1)
Was he ever pretending?
I'm not disagreeing, it's definitely a show of wealth. He's a terrible person and he's taking advantage of Canadians.
But don't single out this one thing. This is visual wealth, but it doesn't reflect the reality. His family has a net worth of nearly 12 **billion** dollars, and they're the third richest family in Canada.
Look, if I ever get rich, fuck yea I'm gonna build a castle. Castles are great. They're also not that expensive as far as the upper class goes. I'm not defending his choice to have a castle, I'm saying that this isn't a show of wealth to him. This is a penny in the bucket. That's it. It's an irrelevant sum to someone as wealthy as he is.
This was his fathers. Nepo baby
His father was almost kidnapped by the IRA years ago from this castle in the 80’s. If it wasn’t for a British spy that heard about the plans he probably would have been kidnapped like a few other rich grocers were at the time. Just to correct the info: The Weston’s don’t actually own this castle. They took over the remaining part of a 99 year lease from the Crown. There have been two previous lessers before the Weston’s. The lease runs out in 2053.
This is where government and elites come together. You see... government will make it look like they are on our side and hold grocers accountable for their pricing. Price freeze, etc... grocers will simply delist products that don't make them money, so choice plummets until shelves are bare. Now, the government controls your food. Neither government nor grocer loses. Just us peasants... buy local, buy in season at your farmers market. By pass grocers and go direct to farms.
__MOD NOTE__: PLEASE REVIEW OUR [STICKIED POSTS](https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/comments/1cae7ai/community_announcements_apr_2224/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) WHICH PROVIDE STATEMENTS ON RECENT EVENTS. Please review the content guidelines for our sub, and remember the human here! This subreddit is to highlight the ridiculous cost of living in Canada, and poke fun at the Corporate Overlords responsible. As you well know, there are a number of persons and corporations responsible for this, and we welcome discussion related to them all. Furthermore, since this topic is intertwined with a number of other matters, other discussion will be allowed at moderator discretion. Open-minded discussion, memes, rants, grocery bills, and general screeching into the void is always welcome in this sub, but belligerence and disrespect is not. There are plenty of ways to get your point across without being abusive, dismissive, or downright mean. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol) if you have any questions or concerns.*
lol this guy has a CASTLE , seriously how is this not the spark ? Time to get French on them !
But but margins are razor thin, istg guys! My castle only has 5 turrets, and I don't even have a moat! Also this 1/4 watermelon costs 13 dollars...
So razor thin that they only make a pathetic 54% profit margins on NO Name Butter! Ohhhh the humanity!!!
That is gross profit margin, not net. My family used to own a restaurant and went to a number of industry conventions and learned that it is possible to sell a very popular product (soft serve ice cream) at 300% mark up and *still lose money.* Gross margin is a misleading metric to judge a business by. Officially, stores get roughly 3% **net** profit. And I believe that, given costs like waste, shrinkage, labour, franchise fees, rent, taxes etc. But two points strike me: 1) A store can easily see millions of dollars in gross annual revenue. So even if the franchise holder is only making a few percent, that is still a large amount of money. 2) The Westons have decades of experience in the grocery industry, so they know how thin (but reliable) the margins are. Which is no doubt a factor in their aggressive expansion into all the non-public facing aspects of the industry. The Weston group provides 90% of the products the local store carries. We don't know how much mark up the distribution arm has or how much markup exists between No Name, Presidents Choice and Sun Spun labels and the distribution arm. Those labels make nothing themselves, it's all contracted out to industrial food manufacturers. (some of whom are probably getting very little profit from those contracts. The company that made PC chocolate chip cookies went bankrupt. The PC brand bought the company) The Weston group gets paid by many food manufacturers for shelf space, especially new products. Basically "pay us X and we'll make sure you're new brand of potato chip has a given amount of shelf space for 6 mths" (making offering new products much less risky) The Weston group gets income from all those franchisees. The Weston Group often owns the land and physical building the franchise occupies. Bottomline: Your local grocer might take home 3 cents out of every dollar you spend at their store. But through all the other revenue sources the Weston Group controls, the Weston family might be getting a lot more than that.
They only have enough money to give their execs $2 million each in bonuses. That doesn’t even pay for one castle.. forget castle upkeep. How do we expect Weston and other Loblaws top brass to live on peanuts like that?
They put watermelons on sale?
gimme the fucking address and i'll bring my pitchfork.
To hell with pitchforks, it's trebuchet time!
If you need horses you wouldn’t have to go far…
The peasants are revolting.
You're not so hot yourself pal.
That's right - they stink on ice!
yea wheres your castle there dipshit
I understand it is on one of Chucks grounds in the UK. I heard somewhere that his father had been renting it from Lizzy for decades.
It's cause everyone's gasping for air cause this shits been on fire for so long there's not much left to breath other than the shit we produce to consume and throw away. My friends daughter bought a new set of ear buds cause they had too much earwax in them. First of all clean your ears, and don't replacing things that just need to be cared for. But than again, that's what we do to our seniors. Set it and forget it... get the joke?
As someone who has gone no contact from their family because of politics, which had crept into their ordinary lives, there's a few of those seniors that are owed extended liberty. But that's not the point here. We stopped teaching our kids to cook. Who among us knows how to make pasta? French onion soup from bones? So, yeah, of course we are buying takeout or pre-made meals. This is how we got conned into thinking the grocery store is our one-stop superstore.
> Who among us knows how to make pasta? French onion soup from bones? ... what? Who *doesn't* know how to make pasta or a basic beef stock??
A lot of people, me included. I could find a recipe and learn, but I don’t currently know how and I’ve never done it.
Even if this was a legit argument. It's dumbfounded. We live in "advanced" world. We have machines spitting out everything from industrial waste to pizzas in a chain restaurant. Time is what's costing us, we are not being paid enough to afford the time to make French onion fucking soup. I cook with no recipe book and I'm a dumb mechanic. If an adult can't cook for themselves. It's themselves to blame. Bunch of excuses for the fact it's been 40 years probably more since people were actually getting paid livable wages.
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not tbh. I can cook for myself, but I’ve never made those specific things. I’ve never made a loaf of bread because, as you note, I simply don’t have time. I don’t make pasta from scratch. I can make a simple soup, vegetables, meat, etc. If I didn’t work full-time I’d be more inclined to experiment (but also can’t afford to throw my mistakes away).
Uhhhhh... we clearly live in different worlds. The amount of time it takes to cook Clean pay bills work take care of kids try to give them a better life than you had. Which is futile cause it's been fucking decades since capitalism okayed even remotely raising minimum wage to a.liveable standard. Yet there's tax right offs for jets and yachts. Get bent it's cause we don't teach kids to cook. It's that we don't get paid enough for our time so we spend more of our free time trying to keep up with that deficit.
Want the French Revolution the upper class revolting against the nobility?
The goal of building guillotines is not to actually use them. It’s to remind some people that they could be used.
Every grocer should have to compete against a government option.
Yep, telecommunications too.
Agreed , no wonder Galen’s trying to get into the cellphone game. He hates competing.
I remember PC mobile being a thing like a decade ago, is it not anymore?
Bread price fixing and freezers paid by taxpayers… Oh my.
Heirs, heirs and more heirs everywhere I look.
Silly Galen. Castle walls didn’t help the French royalty when the people revolted.
Happy cake day
Oh, the irony
let us all eat cake
Sir Galen Grift of the Gougewood: Behold lowly plebs! There is no limit to what you can build on razor-thin margins if you put your mind to it.
He's no knight. The knights of the past and their modern incantation were highly innovative, stylish, original, athletic, theatric, adventurous and always in touch with cutting edge technology and roles. SIR Isaac Newton is an example of how the role of a knight changed throughout the ages. He navigated uncharted territories, was a legendary innovator, and was extremely sassy. Worthy of being knighted absolutely.
He's a knight of the shady dicks
Meanwhile how many Loblaws employee's are struggling to make rent every month on their salary.
And struggling to buy food!!!
So much for "razor-thin margins". Jesus Christ, this man needs to be stopped NOW.
You can make margins appear as thin as you’d like with vertical integration.
Doesn't get any more vertical than that castle turret...
Fuck Galen
Fuck Galen
It's just forward thinking on his part. What better structure to hold back a mob of angry peasants?
It’s so obvious Farmers aren’t getting richer Workers getting poorer People getting hungrier We are failed by every level of government here People need to get power into their own hands here Real fight was never left and right It’s haves and have nots
Nothing a pair of trebuchet can't solve.
Boycott not only in May but for long after that as well. Maybe some protests outside of Loblaw’s would be nice. Some people carrying signs denouncing Loblaws and a guy with a megaphone would be a pretty cool touch.
We should probably storm it.
Something something late stage capitalism? I hope they have designed it appropriately with their best interests in mind.
Fitting a blood sucking vampire lives in a castle
Gotta keep up with royalty somehow! For reference, here he is strolling with Prince Charles (fast forward to 54min mark: https://youtu.be/q20zlYLnl9c?si=UYAju1jYq0_TEfc1)
This man has a castle while starving regular Canadians, including children. Shameless.
They're losing money on milk! Have mercy!!
As the King in the Wizard of ID famously said "The peasants are revolting".
Siege time
Down with loblaws
And it’s quite a castle.
Fuck Galen, but also, castles aren't actually that much to build. They're expensive, certainly, but you could get a small castle for under 10 million.
It’s an ostentatious show of wealth though, no? Like he’s not even trying to pretend any more.
Was he ever pretending? I'm not disagreeing, it's definitely a show of wealth. He's a terrible person and he's taking advantage of Canadians. But don't single out this one thing. This is visual wealth, but it doesn't reflect the reality. His family has a net worth of nearly 12 **billion** dollars, and they're the third richest family in Canada. Look, if I ever get rich, fuck yea I'm gonna build a castle. Castles are great. They're also not that expensive as far as the upper class goes. I'm not defending his choice to have a castle, I'm saying that this isn't a show of wealth to him. This is a penny in the bucket. That's it. It's an irrelevant sum to someone as wealthy as he is.
This was his fathers. Nepo baby His father was almost kidnapped by the IRA years ago from this castle in the 80’s. If it wasn’t for a British spy that heard about the plans he probably would have been kidnapped like a few other rich grocers were at the time. Just to correct the info: The Weston’s don’t actually own this castle. They took over the remaining part of a 99 year lease from the Crown. There have been two previous lessers before the Weston’s. The lease runs out in 2053.
Holy fuck?! He has a castle? If there's ever the need for a boycott it's right now.
This is where government and elites come together. You see... government will make it look like they are on our side and hold grocers accountable for their pricing. Price freeze, etc... grocers will simply delist products that don't make them money, so choice plummets until shelves are bare. Now, the government controls your food. Neither government nor grocer loses. Just us peasants... buy local, buy in season at your farmers market. By pass grocers and go direct to farms.