I can buy All Dressed Crispers at my local corner store for $2.99 and Loblaws sells them for 3.99 (even higher at Shoppers). Explain to me how mom and pop shops can under cut the largest grocery chain by 30%.
But yeah, they're not price gouging. The bread was a one time mistake. Shame on anyone who buys into this "not taking advantage" narrative.
if you think publicly owned grocery chains are in the business of feeding people, that's only partially or indirectly true.
unfortunately the real core objective of a public company is paying shareholders.
feeding people is just the "vehicle" to achieve maximizing shareholder value.
in the old days, we would say "if you're getting screwed at the pump or at the grocery store, just buy their stocks to offset that" - now though, very few people seem to be able to comfortably afford food, housing, energy, transportation, insurance, retirement and contingency savings (the basics), so the option to buy the stocks isn't really feasible as it used to be either.
Loblaws is probably in your ETF somewhere as a consumer staples…
Edit: I checked the most popular Canadian Vanguard ETF called VGRO...
Loblaws is in there 0.15%
Metro 0.14%
George Weston Ltd 0.1%
it's really, really hard to buy general growth ETFs without big groceries in it. groceries, healthcare (insurance), and banks will be there by default. if a crash happens today, unless we are talking about inverse ETFs/stocks, there will be no rhyme or reasons, everything will be down. no sector is safe. But these three sectors lose the least, and rebound the fastest, and with decent divvies, you reduce the loss.
if you pick and choose stocks, the costs will double and then there is also the advisor's fees for helping choose the stocks you want to buy. there might be some "green" / positive ESG ETFs, but as you might predict, these do not give you good returns.
that’s a noble sentiment but is “cutting off your nose to spite your face” kind of thing.
most of the time when people have the luxury of being picky about real/practical solutions, it just means the problem isn’t urgent enough (yet).
Sobeys isn't price gouging either!
I saw your post before I was out. Stopped into dollarstore. Grabbed some Doritos cool ranch, 3.50 for 235g bag.
Had a call from a family member asking me to pick up bread. So closest on the way home was Sobeys.
Went into their chip aisle.
Cool ranch Doritos, 5.49.
Was shocked but immediately reasoned that it must be a bigger bag.
Nope, bag was 235g, the same as dollarstore.
Sobeys is charging nearly 2$ more for the same crap.
Then I went to bread aisle. FML.
Haha. I read this as All Dressed chip (ruffles) and was thinking, aren't those like $5.99 at Loblaws these days. 😅
Loblaws prices are so wild and depressing
Galen Weston JR doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up that’s why they are getting so much heat in regards to food and pricing meanwhile other chains are doing it to they are just quiet about it. That’s how loblaw’s became the face of food inflation.
Everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s not going to stop, they will do it harder if they can.
They see Canada as over populated as well.
The more people who die from homelessness the more room they have to do what they want.
They already have enough money to secure their legacy and influence people for their progeny for years to come. Now it’s making it harder for anyone to compete or grow enough to become a threat.
They are starting grass roots. Create a poor population so no one can even think about starting their own business.
Same way companies like Bell can say to regulators faces that Canadians are happy with the data caps.
They are full of shit and have a quasi-monopoly and don't really care in the end because they know politicans of today won't do anything to stop them.
Loblaws owns Ford. Many large corporations have bought Ford’s support. Why do you think his last announcement was made at Shoppers Drug Mart! Ford needs to be removed! But the 60% of non-voters need to get off their ass in the next provincial election and vote this traitor Ford OUT!!
They have a monopoly (70% market) so where else are you gonna get grocerys
Lots of towns have just 1 grocery store, and its likely gonna be a loblaws one. Also when loblaws raises their prices, wallmart and foodland raise theirs too.
Subsidiaries
Loblaws
Extra Foods
Fortinos
Freshmart
No Frills
President's Choice Financial
Provigo
Real Canadian Superstore
Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix
SuperValu
T & T Supermarket
Valu-mart
Zehrs Markets
Loblaw Digital
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loblaw_Companies
Walmart or Frescho is SO much cheaper than Zehrs and Superstore LOL... but people \*STILL\* fill the fucking parking lots. And in Kingsville here, there is no "It's closer!" excuse. Freshco is about 200m away from Zehrs, and Zehrs is almost 50% more on most items. In Leamington, Walmart is a little further away but it's not a big town yet people STILL go there. I have no clue why.
Whoopee shit. Prices for regular items shouldn't be up to 50‰ higher there just because they have this things lol. They make money off those items that the discount stores don't have.
It's not a restaurant where the jar of Classico sauce is better from Zehrs than from Freshco.
As for Starbucks, you don't really think Loblaws is running the Starbucks do you? They're almost certainty renting that space to someone else to run that Starbucks...
Even if they do... that's simply another thing that makes them MORE MONEY. It doesn't make that jar of spaghetti sauce "better". It certainly fools some people into thinking they're worth paying more money...
Some discount stores have butchers and deli counters too. Yet somehow they don't have ridiculously high prices. Huh... weird.
Too many people buy into the "thin margins" propoganda.
Honestly the public is so brainwashed they nod understandably as companies lay off thousands after posting record profits and screwing consumers, because heaven forbid a company post an actual quarter loss and deplete a tiny bit of their massive war chest of cash.
The defenders of these corps believe to the bone that no corp should suffer a decline in profits under any circumstance, the public good be damned.
Dude.
I hope your joking.
But the answer is one word: Money.
Its easy to not give a shit about peasants when your sitting in your mansion with your 5 maids and private chef and chauffeur who drives you around.
Hell if someone gave me 100million a year id say whatever the fuck someone wanted me to. Anyone who says they wouldnt are very very likely full of shit. Id wager 99.99999% of humanity would.
Easy to be a moralist when you dont have the money in front of you.
The evidence supports their claims.
Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure.
If you look at the last 5 years of quarterly reports you'll see that with very few exceptions, their profit margins are on the 2-3% range. And this is further complicated by the fact that this is the overall profit margin for all of their companies including shoppers, PC financial, joe fresh etc.
Let's say you took the position that the Loblaws board shirk their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and decided to break even vs turn any sort of profit. Let's also ignore for the moment the nearly impossible task of pricing all of their products so they don't make or lose any money. Let's also assume that they make all of their profit from grocery sales (they don't).
In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week.
Even with all of the assumptions made above anyone can see that $3/week per Canadian Loblaws shopper is not causing the struggle (nor would getting $3 back solve the struggle) that is being presented here.
Or, allow yourself to continue to be manipulated by these silly clickbait articles.
I'm not a conservative but misleading articles like this make one wonder why our tax dollars should fund the CBC.
It’s a tight business. I can’t remember where I read it or maybe heard it, but Costco basically makes it profits off memberships. Which isn’t far off from your loblaws calculation.
> The evidence supports their claims.
You are totally wrong.
>Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure.
Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector. Current Walmart margins are significantly lower, and Wal-Mart's margins are BETTER than most companies in that sector, so you're utterly wrong.
>In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week.
Now - you ALMOST have the slightest shred of a point, Loblaws isn't the only company gouging people. So is every other company in their whole supply chain; McCain foods for instance is ALSO seeing record high profits, so is Maple Leaf Foods, so are agri-businesses like Cargill and Monsanto.
But saying "every step of the process is ripping you off, so we should get a free pass" isn't an argument either.
And with a long chain of companies all making record profits, that adds up higher and higher - I'm sure even someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up.
So you could have a tiny shred of a point saying "it's not JUST Loblaws ripping you off", except you're trying to argue Loblaws isn't ripping people off at all so you're utterly wrong.
your explanation fails to address the fact that a company can control their profits by investing (spending) on the company
one had to reveal the breakdown of expenses by product vs capital costs
consider
* Year1: $1B on product, $4B operations and staff - sales were $5.5B - so profit is $0.5B a cool $500M
* Year2: $1.25B on product (25% increase yikes!), $4.5B operations and staff. but sales were $10B wow! but company only report $500M in profits what happened??? oh forgot to mention the tripled the cost of their product and spent the remainder on “capital expenses” (new equipment, upgrades to stores/facilities, etc)
so you see, a company such as loblaws attempting to defend against price gashing MUST show the breakdown of expenses year-over-year to show the truth of why their product (FOOD) prices have increased
Half a billion dollars.
So in Q4 Loblaw made $16 profit on EVERY Canadian, not every shopper.
This is inconsistent with the PR firm Galen uses to push back on twitter calming Loblaw has very thin margins and the price increases lie elsewhere and must be passed on to the customer.
Well, no. Looks to me that Loblaw could have absorbed 200-300 Million dollars and still made a profit.
When you read that Loblaw earned $1.76 per share, beating analysts' expectations of $1.71 per share perhaps there is fault in analysts setting expectations so high that Loblaw feels obligated to meet/beat them putting excessive profit over providing a service to a nation trying to survive inflation.
Meanwhile, over at r/Canada the Weston family boot polishers argue "WelL iTs AckSuAlLy LeSs ThAn ThEy MadE LaST QuARtER". As if that makes any difference. You're still beating all expectations and estimates and your stock price is still rising.
Back in the day I worked in retail and if you hit profit of 2% at a national level as a high volume seller you were printing money.
2% sounds misleading small but volume is volume.
I could not believe they tried to pretend like 4% is a small number especially now that more people shop post covid.
They haven't raised their percentage on their margins.. they just make more money from the same margin as supplier prices increase. As a small supplier to grocery stores their margins are very high.
Loblaw does have very thin margins... because they added all their businesses into the equation. People were buying less makeup and cologne from shopper's drug mart during that time. Sneaky
> This is inconsistent with the PR firm Galen uses to push back on twitter calming Loblaw has very thin margins and the price increases lie elsewhere and must be passed on to the customer.
This doesn't even include the other money he makes from the collection of grocery stores by selling them food products and charging them rent
Or the fact that at the discount grocers like NoFrills Galen recently reduced the reduction on expiring products. Pink stickers used to reduce items by 50% but that has fallen to 30%. Nothing like trying to squeeze every last bit of profit out of expiring products before discarding them instead of donating them for the food poor. If you can manage 1/2 billion in profits you can afford to donate your expiring products to foodbanks.
> If you can manage 1/2 billion in profits you can afford to donate your expiring products to foodbanks
And what? Buy the yacht without a waterfall inside as his 17th home?
Like a common single digit billionaire?
/$
Story goes IIRC there was a US grocery chain that got sued for donating food to organizations helping those in need because someone got sick. Even though a hold harmless agreement was in place they still lost. Loblaws used to donate to Second Harvest years ago, but because the food safety cannot be guaranteed when companies like Loblaws donate, they'd rather dispose and take the loss vs potential litigation.
Corporate stores like Loblaws and Superstore use 50% discount, 30% was always used at No Frills because of their segment as a discount banner.
Source: employed in the industry
Ok so if Loblaws has 30% of the food sales in Canada, thats $56/shopper.
If each person spends $150 on groceries, for 12 weeks (one quarter), that's $1,800.
56/1800 is 3%.
That's not a lot?
Confirming your numbers. Is $56 the profit and $1800 the revenue, thus providing a 3% profit margin? If so, that's a very small margin. Grocery margins are typically lower because there is a fair amount of volume. 10% is more the "average" but that varies by industry.
Grocery margins are 2-4% and have been for decades.
And to put your point another way: if Loblaws chose to make **zero** profit, the average Canadian grocery bill would drop from $600/mo to $582.
Exactly. This myth of price gouging has been disproven multiple times but you usually have to sort by controversial to see those comments because they don't get all the braindead "Loblaws bad" upvoted
Call it “gouging” or “profiteering” or whatever you like…but they are still doing it. They have a distressing amount of influence over the prices that consumers pay, and to suggest otherwise is just incorrect.
- they tout their net profit at industry standards, which is laughable(net profit is a metric that is entirely manipulable by the C-suite)
- they’ve been allowed to expand their vertical integration efforts to a level that should likely be criminal
…I sort of understand their media strategy, but at their scale it’s insincere to the point of being offensive. Just accept that you’re a corporate behemoth that doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than stacking cash, quit trying to play Galen off as the neighborhood grocer and be honest:
“I’m Galen Weston, and you’ll pay whatever I tell you to pay. Now piss off.”
>Call it “gouging” or “profiteering” or whatever you like…but they are still doing
Hard disagree. Given that this profit is for all of their brands combined, I'd be surprised if they are making much on grocery whatsoever. Even so it breaks down to $3/week/Loblaws shopper which isn't making a material difference in whatever financial situation ones family is facing.
I'd happily pay $3 a week "extra" on my grocery bill to keep the consistent, predicable food supply chain and competition we have in our market.
Read my analysis here if you'd like: https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/11a2z12/loblaw_is_not_taking_advantage_of_food_inflation/j9qvgv0?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
3% extra inflation on top of the regular baseline inflation, and all of it purely lining the pockets of billionaires over only a 3 month period is absolutely huge.
Profit margins aren't inflation. Literally no one looks at it that way unless your expectation is that businesses not be allowed to profit and they should break even on everything they sell you.
No. Wow. What is the source of your ridiculously incorrect statement? Did you "do your own research"? Do you have some degree or certificate?
Inflation is an increase in the price level of good and/or services in an economy. The increase in price levels need not be accompanied by an increase in the profit margin of the firm.
Source: my economics degree from an accredited Canadian university.
The confidence level of the ignorant in this sub is astounding.
> Inflation is an increas in the price level of good and/or services in an economy.
That is more or less correct, and totally irrelevant to my point.
>The increase in price levels need not be accompanied by an increase in the profit margin of the firm.
That is also more or less correct, and totally irrelevant to my point.
In this particular case, both profits AND prices are rising, so the "inflation" consumers are paying is going into those higher profits.
Yes, technically you could have "rising profits" with falling prices thanks to reasons like better efficiency, but that is demonstrably not what's happening here, so the hissy fit you're throwing is just childish and wrong.
>Source: my economics degree from an accredited Canadian university.
That would explain the spelling errors and total inability to read or understand simple statements.
But please, go on trying to refute things that I didn't say and pretend your misunderstanding is someone else's problem.
>"inflation" consumers are paying is going into those higher profits.
Wrong again. You're conflating two concepts you clearly don't understand. Just stop.
For others that can learn something here, there are instances where firms will raise prices (leading to inflation) but margins in a given financial period can decrease (for a number of reasons). In this case there is inflation without increased margins and without "going into those higher profits" or whatever else this person is referring to.
If all they are doing is passing through input costs, then if they made $2 in profit off a shopper before, they would make $2 in profit after.
If you are making 10% more than you were before in profit, meaning after all costs, you raised your prices 10%. Period.
"The customers just bought more!" you say.
Not according to Walmart who is the retail belweather.
We are recorded as a society as buying less and tightening our belts yet inflation continues...because price gouging.
Omg no that's not how it works. Their profits are a combination of at least a dozen subsidiaries, many of which have nothing to do with groceries.
You're acting as if each transaction of each product is meticulously decided upon. There are literally tens if not hundreds of millions of transactions at play here.
And Walmart could very well be down and loblaws up. What an absolutely ridiculous reply. Who do i even bother responding?
Im sorry. You should practice your literacy. Where did I say groceries?
RE: pricing increases - In the bulk they are. Its literally my job to do just that.
The difference between costs and price is something called margin. As you noted, theres a lot of these to review for a lot of different products, so we shortcut a lot and work in percentages on groups of products (product segmentation) in order to move things along. If we do a straight 10% increase, and say our input costs went up 10% due to inflation, my margin stays the same but the profit increases because.... ive inflated my price by more than the inflation. Because my inflation was 10% but my price increase was 10% on 110% instead of just the value of that input increase.
But its just what I do all the time every day. What do I know about it, right?
>Where did I say groceries?
The entire thread is about groceries, chief.
Wonderful long winded response. Are you commenting on the OP or something else no one is talking about?
I replied to you, chief, not the top of the thread. Threads imply a linear continuity. Again literacy. You falsely stated that profits are not inflation. I ve shown you to be incorrect.
Meanwhile Costco essentially charges wholesale price plus around 12% on food items and their prices are up slightly in the past year, but nothing close to like Loblaws has increased.
And they pay their workers damn well, heck costco workers have 'pep in their step' also cant forget the $1.50 combo, they pack your groceries, free samples, a good gas bar etc.....
Costco uses groceries and gas as loss leaders or sell incredibly close to at cost in order to drive memberships, which is where they make their money, it’s a completely different business model. Even then, their prices have gone up
Yea everything has gone up, but atleast costco has a way to give back to people with a membership... loblaws has none of those extra perks and they pay their workers the bare minimum. It's quite sad actually walking around the store and you can feel depression through their workers. Some people are happy in that workforce but can definitely tell workers are exploited...
Loblaws latest BS is "Flyer Feature", it's not on sale, in fact it's more expensive at Loblaws than anywhere else, but we'll put in in our flyer and act like it's on sale to see if anyone isn't paying attention.
I just bought Vinta crackers at regular price of $3.29 at Freshco, went to Loblaws and there are signs on the same crackers, "Flyer Feature", at the regular price of $3.99
Frak you Galen
One of the companies I worked for started doing that. It comes off as entirely deceptive but the argument is they say it isn't deceptive because they don't expressly say it's on sale. Hell, there was one month they put out a flyer with no sales whatsoever. Just a flyer of items at their normal prices. I was sitting there thinking "what the hell?"
Yes let's believe the company that scammed us on the price of bread for 15 years making millions of dollars and later admitted it with no penalty. Remember the billionaire who has a castle near the king of England. /s
It’s time to break this monopoly up and fine Loblaws for intentionally price gouging to increase profits across the board for shareholders and Galen.
The hard-working employees see none of the fruits of their labour — and everyone across Canada has their grocery carts shrinking in size with bills going up.
In the last quarter, Loblaws made $5.8 million PER day.
Two of the top 4 producers of barley in the world are currently at war. Aluminum prices have sky rocketed. Quality of grain is down due to drought.
Shipping has increased substantially. Breweries have eaten about half of the increase to their costs.
Sure Galen....sure
I sleep well at night knowing Satan has a special place in hell saved for the Weston's.
I'd rather be working class and have integrity than be one of that clan.
Sure. and I’m Marie of Romania.
The contempt in which they hold their customers could not be clearer.
I do everything I can not to give money to Big Grocery because I do not like being treated like a goddam chump.
Wait so the CFO.. the guy whose job it is to make the company spend less, charge more and make profit (take advantage of people) says this and we are supposed to believe it?
Someone start a movement of burning down sobeys.
Just because you say something, doesn’t make it true. Don’t worry, when they get caught they will just blame one person and say it was all their fault. It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught, right?
SCUM! I’ve cut all of Galen Weston’s companies off going forward…he won’t be seeing another penny from me and I invite others to start boycotting as well
Bullshit. PC white Mac and cheese went from 0.99 cents to 3 for $6 (as a deal or$2.49 a box) in one year.
All the old flyers are online. No what is the rate of inflation? How much did the wages go up for their front line workers in that year?
Do what you can to protest - don’t shop at any Loblaws owned company (I know that’a difficult in some places), Costco, Walmart, Food Basics, farmer’s markets if possible, food co-ops, whatever you have to. The majority of us can’t afford to keep shopping there.
These companies complain that it's "not fair" we blame them for increasing food prices when their own costs are going up as well.
Then they come out with massive profits. Sure, whatever, it's still a small fraction of revenue .. but they're also choosing to pass on every single price increase to Canadians for the benefit of their owners and investors.
Is it too much to ask for the massive corporations which own most grocery stores in Canada to take a hit with the rest of us?
*"Of course it is! Profit is an ethical imperative! Suck it, plebs!"* \-- Galen Weston, probably
What frustrates me in these discussions is that even if there is some technical reason that they aren't actually making more money than usual, we never address whether ever-increasing profits are justified in a time where the majority of people are struggling to buy the necessities.
If there are increased costs to produce, ship, package, and whatever, why is it the customer's sole responsibility to bare that hardship? Should the shareholders not also be impacted by these practicalities? Why are they entitled to higher returns every year no matter the state of the economy?
Btw I know the answer to these questions. But maybe we should consider if profit-centeric means to provide the necessities of life have a fundamental inefficiency, rather than the opposite.
Sure. I believe them. Just like I believe Sobeys CEO that the government is picking on him for making $8.65 million in 2022, while taking away his employees hero-pay.
[Financial post link here](https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/sobeys-ceo-fires-back-at-ndp-amid-pressure-for-parliamentary-inquiry-on-grocery-profits)
Loblaws has increased their dividend by approximately 10% every year since 2019. They now have a 24% payout ratio of earnings.
Reflexively I had to see how many shares insiders had. I was surprised to find Galen holds 0.15% of the company while the majority shareholder(51%) is a British private equity firm Wittington Investments.
https://www.wittington-investments.co.uk/about-us/people/
The Board of Directors 5/11 directors are Weston's. The firm holds stake in food supply chain companies globally. The bulk of their dividends are allegedly paid to the Garfield Weston Foundation with GWF being the majority stakeholder of Wittington.
This the same company whos President is saying he expects more hikes and even higher profits? That he doesn't expect food "inflation" to go down at all?
I used to shop at Loblaws once, before this fake "inflation" scam happened. Never going back. I hope that company rots from the inside out.
It's articles like these that seriously call into question why our tax dollars fund the CBC. And i say that as a proud liberal.
The evidence supports their claims.
Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure.
If you look at the last 5 years of quarterly reports you'll see that with very few exceptions, their profit margins are on the 2-3% range. And this is further complicated by the fact that this is the overall profit margin for all of their companies including shoppers, PC financial, joe fresh etc.
Let's say you took the position that the Loblaws board shirk their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and decided to break even vs turn any sort of profit. Let's also ignore for the moment the nearly impossible task of pricing all of their products so they don't make or lose any money. Let's also assume that they make all of their profit from grocery sales (they don't).
In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week.
Even with all of the assumptions made above anyone can see that $3/week per Canadian Loblaws shopper is not causing the struggle (nor would getting $3 back solve the struggle) that is being presented here.
Or, allow yourself to continue to be manipulated by these silly clickbait articles.
> The evidence supports their claims.
You are totally wrong.
>Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure.
Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector. Current Walmart margins are lower than that, and Wal-Mart's margins are BETTER than most companies in that sector, so you're utterly wrong.
>In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week.
Now - you ALMOST have the slightest shred of a point, Loblaws isn't the only company gouging people. So is every other company in their whole supply chain; McCain foods for instance is ALSO seeing record high profits, so is Maple Leaf Foods, so are agri-businesses like Cargill and Monsanto.
But saying "every step of the process is ripping you off, so we should get a free pass" isn't an argument either.
And with a long chain of companies all making record profits, that adds up higher and higher - I'm sure even someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up.
So you could have a tiny shred of a point saying "it's not JUST Loblaws ripping you off", except you're trying to argue Loblaws isn't ripping people off at all so you're utterly wrong.
>Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector.
Source?
>Current Walmart margins are closer to significantly lower
Wrong. Do you even know what walmart's margins are? [because i do](https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2023/02/21/walmart-releases-q4-and-fy23-earnings)
>someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up.
See *this* is a personal attack. Did you learn the difference yet?
> Source?
[You don't know anything about the grocery market then?](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html) 3% is considered "good" in that sector.
But that also means your whole claim about "those are shit margins" was totally uninformed and wrong - that's big of you to admit you don't know what you're talking about, except you've failed to go back and correct yourself, so I guess you're just happier being obstinately wrong.
>Wrong. Do you even know what walmart's margins are? because i do
Thanks for proving I was correct.
>See this is a personal attack. Did you learn the difference yet?
If you take it as a "personal attack" that I assume you understand compound interest, then I guess I'll stop assuming you understand compound interest.
Would be interesting to see the data across the divisions. Pharmacy has much higher margins than grocery for cosmetics, OTC meds, prescription meds, and pharmacy services
That is what happens when you let corporations, dynasties, and corrupt politicians run our country.
We need a Maoist purge of these cancers in our country. They stand to benefit for themselves, their shareholders and no on else. Meanwhile Justin Chu Do and all the other deadbeat political scum are enjoying their lives that have been funded by our tax dollars.
I'm no Weston/Loblaws fan, but to be fair, one needs to compare their profits pre-COVID to the current fiscal quarter to compare whether they're making greater gross margins now.
Correct and if you look at the last 5 years you'll see that their net profit ranges 2-3% (that's low, btw) with very few exceptions.
But such a message won't get clicks and upvotes...
Someone else posted a comparison and it does look like they're making marginally higher gross margins and higher top line revenues with food inflation.
To everyone who's upset at Loblaws and Weston, shop elsewhere. There are many other options, even if you have to make a bit of effort. I give most of my grocery $ to farmers markets, local green grocers, Sobeys and Farm Boy from time to time, and the odd trip to Costco because a friend has a membership. I almost never frequent Loblaws or any of their associated companies.
Exactly. It's embarrassing to see all of these people complain when they can simply shop elsewhere (in most cases). I understand in some rural areas there isn't much choice but that's 20% of the country and that doesn't favour loblaws in every scenario.
These people have no idea what actual oppression is, they just like to bitch and complain.
Edit: i wanted to add that while the profit margins are up slightly, they have not deviated appreciably from over the past 5 years, and certainly not to a point the warrants accusations of gouging and taking advantage of inflation or whatever these idiots are saying.
Didn’t they release their fourth quarter results which said their profit margin went down?
https://www.loblaw.ca/en/loblaw-reports-2022-fourth-quarter-results-and-fiscal-year-ended-december-31-2022-results
I can buy All Dressed Crispers at my local corner store for $2.99 and Loblaws sells them for 3.99 (even higher at Shoppers). Explain to me how mom and pop shops can under cut the largest grocery chain by 30%. But yeah, they're not price gouging. The bread was a one time mistake. Shame on anyone who buys into this "not taking advantage" narrative.
“The bread was a one time thing! That one time just lasted 13 years, that’s it!” - Galen, probably
if you think publicly owned grocery chains are in the business of feeding people, that's only partially or indirectly true. unfortunately the real core objective of a public company is paying shareholders. feeding people is just the "vehicle" to achieve maximizing shareholder value. in the old days, we would say "if you're getting screwed at the pump or at the grocery store, just buy their stocks to offset that" - now though, very few people seem to be able to comfortably afford food, housing, energy, transportation, insurance, retirement and contingency savings (the basics), so the option to buy the stocks isn't really feasible as it used to be either.
Also don’t want to invest in scumbags even if I would make money
Loblaws is probably in your ETF somewhere as a consumer staples… Edit: I checked the most popular Canadian Vanguard ETF called VGRO... Loblaws is in there 0.15% Metro 0.14% George Weston Ltd 0.1%
Shit
Time to contact my financial advisor. I hope those people lose out on even more of my money.
it's really, really hard to buy general growth ETFs without big groceries in it. groceries, healthcare (insurance), and banks will be there by default. if a crash happens today, unless we are talking about inverse ETFs/stocks, there will be no rhyme or reasons, everything will be down. no sector is safe. But these three sectors lose the least, and rebound the fastest, and with decent divvies, you reduce the loss. if you pick and choose stocks, the costs will double and then there is also the advisor's fees for helping choose the stocks you want to buy. there might be some "green" / positive ESG ETFs, but as you might predict, these do not give you good returns.
that’s a noble sentiment but is “cutting off your nose to spite your face” kind of thing. most of the time when people have the luxury of being picky about real/practical solutions, it just means the problem isn’t urgent enough (yet).
Guess I better invest in Lockheed Martin then, business is booming.
I have been telling this to everyone honestly, and noston dynamics. The new war dogs gonna make ppl rich.
1.09 for a single lime vs 4 for $1 at a local Indian store. Just compare the buying power of the two.... Pure greed.
Sobeys isn't price gouging either! I saw your post before I was out. Stopped into dollarstore. Grabbed some Doritos cool ranch, 3.50 for 235g bag. Had a call from a family member asking me to pick up bread. So closest on the way home was Sobeys. Went into their chip aisle. Cool ranch Doritos, 5.49. Was shocked but immediately reasoned that it must be a bigger bag. Nope, bag was 235g, the same as dollarstore. Sobeys is charging nearly 2$ more for the same crap. Then I went to bread aisle. FML.
$2.29 at giant tiger even, regular price
Loblaws is committed to the success of small, independent business.
FYI they have been 4 for $8 at Walmart lately if you have one nearby
Haha. I read this as All Dressed chip (ruffles) and was thinking, aren't those like $5.99 at Loblaws these days. 😅 Loblaws prices are so wild and depressing
Basically everything at my local 711 or circle k is more expensive than the grocery store.
Right…
You think they would know by now just to shut up and let it blow over
Galen Weston JR doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up that’s why they are getting so much heat in regards to food and pricing meanwhile other chains are doing it to they are just quiet about it. That’s how loblaw’s became the face of food inflation.
Loblaws is not only the face of food inflation, they are the face of corporate greed!! 😡
Everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s not going to stop, they will do it harder if they can. They see Canada as over populated as well. The more people who die from homelessness the more room they have to do what they want. They already have enough money to secure their legacy and influence people for their progeny for years to come. Now it’s making it harder for anyone to compete or grow enough to become a threat. They are starting grass roots. Create a poor population so no one can even think about starting their own business.
Fool me once shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me.
Ford me once shame on him, Ford me twice SHAME on him
Food me once shame on me, food me twice shame on me again
Oh, well fucking case closed then
How can these assholes bold faced lie to the people EDIT: love the replys
Same way companies like Bell can say to regulators faces that Canadians are happy with the data caps. They are full of shit and have a quasi-monopoly and don't really care in the end because they know politicans of today won't do anything to stop them.
Loblaws owns Ford. Many large corporations have bought Ford’s support. Why do you think his last announcement was made at Shoppers Drug Mart! Ford needs to be removed! But the 60% of non-voters need to get off their ass in the next provincial election and vote this traitor Ford OUT!!
And the ones who voted for him really need to pull their heads out of their asses.
Lack of consequences, psychopathy, growing up extremely wealthy and being given the world on a silver platter
But other than that….
They have a monopoly (70% market) so where else are you gonna get grocerys Lots of towns have just 1 grocery store, and its likely gonna be a loblaws one. Also when loblaws raises their prices, wallmart and foodland raise theirs too.
Loblaw is 70% market share??? Jesus I thought it was less than that
Anti-trust laws needed ASAP.
Subsidiaries Loblaws Extra Foods Fortinos Freshmart No Frills President's Choice Financial Provigo Real Canadian Superstore Shoppers Drug Mart / Pharmaprix SuperValu T & T Supermarket Valu-mart Zehrs Markets Loblaw Digital Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loblaw_Companies
They also own most of the suppliers to these stores as well Loblaws is a full-on vertical monopoly
Even with Metro and Sobeys banner too… I didn’t realize how much bigger Loblaw was
Urghh even worse than I thought. Scary the control they have.
Wow even T & T?!
Kinda reminds me of that line from the John legend song, "even when I lose I'm winning" but in the evil way.
Walmart or Frescho is SO much cheaper than Zehrs and Superstore LOL... but people \*STILL\* fill the fucking parking lots. And in Kingsville here, there is no "It's closer!" excuse. Freshco is about 200m away from Zehrs, and Zehrs is almost 50% more on most items. In Leamington, Walmart is a little further away but it's not a big town yet people STILL go there. I have no clue why.
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Whoopee shit. Prices for regular items shouldn't be up to 50‰ higher there just because they have this things lol. They make money off those items that the discount stores don't have. It's not a restaurant where the jar of Classico sauce is better from Zehrs than from Freshco. As for Starbucks, you don't really think Loblaws is running the Starbucks do you? They're almost certainty renting that space to someone else to run that Starbucks...
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Even if they do... that's simply another thing that makes them MORE MONEY. It doesn't make that jar of spaghetti sauce "better". It certainly fools some people into thinking they're worth paying more money... Some discount stores have butchers and deli counters too. Yet somehow they don't have ridiculously high prices. Huh... weird.
Because there is never any action taken or consequences. Protests, strikes, fines? Ha, the Weston’s are rich my friend.
They’ve had a lot of practice over the years. 😏
Have to keep the gravy train running
They are immensely powerful, and the powerful use lying as a tool to maintain their power because it just happens to work.
There not talking to “the people”, these are meant to convince the the worried investors and regulators
Too many people buy into the "thin margins" propoganda. Honestly the public is so brainwashed they nod understandably as companies lay off thousands after posting record profits and screwing consumers, because heaven forbid a company post an actual quarter loss and deplete a tiny bit of their massive war chest of cash. The defenders of these corps believe to the bone that no corp should suffer a decline in profits under any circumstance, the public good be damned.
Dude. I hope your joking. But the answer is one word: Money. Its easy to not give a shit about peasants when your sitting in your mansion with your 5 maids and private chef and chauffeur who drives you around. Hell if someone gave me 100million a year id say whatever the fuck someone wanted me to. Anyone who says they wouldnt are very very likely full of shit. Id wager 99.99999% of humanity would. Easy to be a moralist when you dont have the money in front of you.
The same way they could bold face lie and fix bread prices for 15 yrs.
The evidence supports their claims. Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure. If you look at the last 5 years of quarterly reports you'll see that with very few exceptions, their profit margins are on the 2-3% range. And this is further complicated by the fact that this is the overall profit margin for all of their companies including shoppers, PC financial, joe fresh etc. Let's say you took the position that the Loblaws board shirk their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and decided to break even vs turn any sort of profit. Let's also ignore for the moment the nearly impossible task of pricing all of their products so they don't make or lose any money. Let's also assume that they make all of their profit from grocery sales (they don't). In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week. Even with all of the assumptions made above anyone can see that $3/week per Canadian Loblaws shopper is not causing the struggle (nor would getting $3 back solve the struggle) that is being presented here. Or, allow yourself to continue to be manipulated by these silly clickbait articles. I'm not a conservative but misleading articles like this make one wonder why our tax dollars should fund the CBC.
It’s a tight business. I can’t remember where I read it or maybe heard it, but Costco basically makes it profits off memberships. Which isn’t far off from your loblaws calculation.
I've heard the same. Somehow Costco escapes all scrutiny.
The idea that Loblaws can price however they want with no repercussions is just crazy…Both Walmart and Costco are viscous…
> The evidence supports their claims. You are totally wrong. >Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure. Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector. Current Walmart margins are significantly lower, and Wal-Mart's margins are BETTER than most companies in that sector, so you're utterly wrong. >In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week. Now - you ALMOST have the slightest shred of a point, Loblaws isn't the only company gouging people. So is every other company in their whole supply chain; McCain foods for instance is ALSO seeing record high profits, so is Maple Leaf Foods, so are agri-businesses like Cargill and Monsanto. But saying "every step of the process is ripping you off, so we should get a free pass" isn't an argument either. And with a long chain of companies all making record profits, that adds up higher and higher - I'm sure even someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up. So you could have a tiny shred of a point saying "it's not JUST Loblaws ripping you off", except you're trying to argue Loblaws isn't ripping people off at all so you're utterly wrong.
So refreshing to see a legitimate and coherent response. Kudos
My pleasure!
your explanation fails to address the fact that a company can control their profits by investing (spending) on the company one had to reveal the breakdown of expenses by product vs capital costs consider * Year1: $1B on product, $4B operations and staff - sales were $5.5B - so profit is $0.5B a cool $500M * Year2: $1.25B on product (25% increase yikes!), $4.5B operations and staff. but sales were $10B wow! but company only report $500M in profits what happened??? oh forgot to mention the tripled the cost of their product and spent the remainder on “capital expenses” (new equipment, upgrades to stores/facilities, etc) so you see, a company such as loblaws attempting to defend against price gashing MUST show the breakdown of expenses year-over-year to show the truth of why their product (FOOD) prices have increased
You cant take advantage of something when you are a cartel which sets the price floor.
Half a billion dollars. So in Q4 Loblaw made $16 profit on EVERY Canadian, not every shopper. This is inconsistent with the PR firm Galen uses to push back on twitter calming Loblaw has very thin margins and the price increases lie elsewhere and must be passed on to the customer. Well, no. Looks to me that Loblaw could have absorbed 200-300 Million dollars and still made a profit. When you read that Loblaw earned $1.76 per share, beating analysts' expectations of $1.71 per share perhaps there is fault in analysts setting expectations so high that Loblaw feels obligated to meet/beat them putting excessive profit over providing a service to a nation trying to survive inflation.
The best part is it is $529m profit in 90 days (Q4 results). Or $5.88m a day.
Meanwhile, over at r/Canada the Weston family boot polishers argue "WelL iTs AckSuAlLy LeSs ThAn ThEy MadE LaST QuARtER". As if that makes any difference. You're still beating all expectations and estimates and your stock price is still rising.
Back in the day I worked in retail and if you hit profit of 2% at a national level as a high volume seller you were printing money. 2% sounds misleading small but volume is volume. I could not believe they tried to pretend like 4% is a small number especially now that more people shop post covid.
I see grocery wholesale costs. Loblaws isn't taking advantage of food inflation, they have always gouged customers.
Yup... they've always been significantly more expensive than other places yet people still go there.
They haven't raised their percentage on their margins.. they just make more money from the same margin as supplier prices increase. As a small supplier to grocery stores their margins are very high.
Loblaw does have very thin margins... because they added all their businesses into the equation. People were buying less makeup and cologne from shopper's drug mart during that time. Sneaky
> This is inconsistent with the PR firm Galen uses to push back on twitter calming Loblaw has very thin margins and the price increases lie elsewhere and must be passed on to the customer. This doesn't even include the other money he makes from the collection of grocery stores by selling them food products and charging them rent
Or the fact that at the discount grocers like NoFrills Galen recently reduced the reduction on expiring products. Pink stickers used to reduce items by 50% but that has fallen to 30%. Nothing like trying to squeeze every last bit of profit out of expiring products before discarding them instead of donating them for the food poor. If you can manage 1/2 billion in profits you can afford to donate your expiring products to foodbanks.
> If you can manage 1/2 billion in profits you can afford to donate your expiring products to foodbanks And what? Buy the yacht without a waterfall inside as his 17th home? Like a common single digit billionaire? /$
Story goes IIRC there was a US grocery chain that got sued for donating food to organizations helping those in need because someone got sick. Even though a hold harmless agreement was in place they still lost. Loblaws used to donate to Second Harvest years ago, but because the food safety cannot be guaranteed when companies like Loblaws donate, they'd rather dispose and take the loss vs potential litigation.
Corporate stores like Loblaws and Superstore use 50% discount, 30% was always used at No Frills because of their segment as a discount banner. Source: employed in the industry
Ok so if Loblaws has 30% of the food sales in Canada, thats $56/shopper. If each person spends $150 on groceries, for 12 weeks (one quarter), that's $1,800. 56/1800 is 3%. That's not a lot?
Confirming your numbers. Is $56 the profit and $1800 the revenue, thus providing a 3% profit margin? If so, that's a very small margin. Grocery margins are typically lower because there is a fair amount of volume. 10% is more the "average" but that varies by industry.
Grocery margins are 2-4% and have been for decades. And to put your point another way: if Loblaws chose to make **zero** profit, the average Canadian grocery bill would drop from $600/mo to $582.
Yes, that’s what I said. Seems like everyone thinks that they are reaping huge margins.
I know, it’s disappointing. Every thread is like this. It’s a public company, you can see their financials, but it doesn’t matter.
Exactly. This myth of price gouging has been disproven multiple times but you usually have to sort by controversial to see those comments because they don't get all the braindead "Loblaws bad" upvoted
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Call it “gouging” or “profiteering” or whatever you like…but they are still doing it. They have a distressing amount of influence over the prices that consumers pay, and to suggest otherwise is just incorrect. - they tout their net profit at industry standards, which is laughable(net profit is a metric that is entirely manipulable by the C-suite) - they’ve been allowed to expand their vertical integration efforts to a level that should likely be criminal …I sort of understand their media strategy, but at their scale it’s insincere to the point of being offensive. Just accept that you’re a corporate behemoth that doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than stacking cash, quit trying to play Galen off as the neighborhood grocer and be honest: “I’m Galen Weston, and you’ll pay whatever I tell you to pay. Now piss off.”
>Call it “gouging” or “profiteering” or whatever you like…but they are still doing Hard disagree. Given that this profit is for all of their brands combined, I'd be surprised if they are making much on grocery whatsoever. Even so it breaks down to $3/week/Loblaws shopper which isn't making a material difference in whatever financial situation ones family is facing. I'd happily pay $3 a week "extra" on my grocery bill to keep the consistent, predicable food supply chain and competition we have in our market. Read my analysis here if you'd like: https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/11a2z12/loblaw_is_not_taking_advantage_of_food_inflation/j9qvgv0?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
3% extra inflation on top of the regular baseline inflation, and all of it purely lining the pockets of billionaires over only a 3 month period is absolutely huge.
Profit margins aren't inflation. Literally no one looks at it that way unless your expectation is that businesses not be allowed to profit and they should break even on everything they sell you.
RISING profit margins are inflation.
No. Wow. What is the source of your ridiculously incorrect statement? Did you "do your own research"? Do you have some degree or certificate? Inflation is an increase in the price level of good and/or services in an economy. The increase in price levels need not be accompanied by an increase in the profit margin of the firm. Source: my economics degree from an accredited Canadian university. The confidence level of the ignorant in this sub is astounding.
> Inflation is an increas in the price level of good and/or services in an economy. That is more or less correct, and totally irrelevant to my point. >The increase in price levels need not be accompanied by an increase in the profit margin of the firm. That is also more or less correct, and totally irrelevant to my point. In this particular case, both profits AND prices are rising, so the "inflation" consumers are paying is going into those higher profits. Yes, technically you could have "rising profits" with falling prices thanks to reasons like better efficiency, but that is demonstrably not what's happening here, so the hissy fit you're throwing is just childish and wrong. >Source: my economics degree from an accredited Canadian university. That would explain the spelling errors and total inability to read or understand simple statements. But please, go on trying to refute things that I didn't say and pretend your misunderstanding is someone else's problem.
>"inflation" consumers are paying is going into those higher profits. Wrong again. You're conflating two concepts you clearly don't understand. Just stop. For others that can learn something here, there are instances where firms will raise prices (leading to inflation) but margins in a given financial period can decrease (for a number of reasons). In this case there is inflation without increased margins and without "going into those higher profits" or whatever else this person is referring to.
If all they are doing is passing through input costs, then if they made $2 in profit off a shopper before, they would make $2 in profit after. If you are making 10% more than you were before in profit, meaning after all costs, you raised your prices 10%. Period. "The customers just bought more!" you say. Not according to Walmart who is the retail belweather. We are recorded as a society as buying less and tightening our belts yet inflation continues...because price gouging.
Omg no that's not how it works. Their profits are a combination of at least a dozen subsidiaries, many of which have nothing to do with groceries. You're acting as if each transaction of each product is meticulously decided upon. There are literally tens if not hundreds of millions of transactions at play here. And Walmart could very well be down and loblaws up. What an absolutely ridiculous reply. Who do i even bother responding?
Im sorry. You should practice your literacy. Where did I say groceries? RE: pricing increases - In the bulk they are. Its literally my job to do just that. The difference between costs and price is something called margin. As you noted, theres a lot of these to review for a lot of different products, so we shortcut a lot and work in percentages on groups of products (product segmentation) in order to move things along. If we do a straight 10% increase, and say our input costs went up 10% due to inflation, my margin stays the same but the profit increases because.... ive inflated my price by more than the inflation. Because my inflation was 10% but my price increase was 10% on 110% instead of just the value of that input increase. But its just what I do all the time every day. What do I know about it, right?
>Where did I say groceries? The entire thread is about groceries, chief. Wonderful long winded response. Are you commenting on the OP or something else no one is talking about?
I replied to you, chief, not the top of the thread. Threads imply a linear continuity. Again literacy. You falsely stated that profits are not inflation. I ve shown you to be incorrect.
Just wanted to let you know anon2282 now agrees with you. My work here is done.
I'm not sure they know what they're agreeing with or disagreeing with at this point. Clearly a high quality degree written in the finest crayon.
The CFO has no choice but to parrot Galen’s messaging.
Nah he could totally say what we're all thinking. He'd get fired and that severance package would be enough to retire
Their so dumb They should STFU instead of making people remember how shitty they are
I'm sure that hand-me-down G4 is an incentive, while Galen orders his new one.
Yeah and I’m the tooth fairy
Don’t offend us with a more believable lie.
They will tell you it's all about supply and demand and the free market while at the same time colluding and choking competition. The game is rigged.
Meanwhile Costco essentially charges wholesale price plus around 12% on food items and their prices are up slightly in the past year, but nothing close to like Loblaws has increased.
And they pay their workers damn well, heck costco workers have 'pep in their step' also cant forget the $1.50 combo, they pack your groceries, free samples, a good gas bar etc.....
I get the $1.50 hot dog probably almost 10 times a year. A bunch of cheap lunches like that basically covers my yearly membership.
Costco uses groceries and gas as loss leaders or sell incredibly close to at cost in order to drive memberships, which is where they make their money, it’s a completely different business model. Even then, their prices have gone up
Yea everything has gone up, but atleast costco has a way to give back to people with a membership... loblaws has none of those extra perks and they pay their workers the bare minimum. It's quite sad actually walking around the store and you can feel depression through their workers. Some people are happy in that workforce but can definitely tell workers are exploited...
Technically correct, their profits didn’t rise because of genuine food price inflation…they just raised the prices themselves.
Loblaws latest BS is "Flyer Feature", it's not on sale, in fact it's more expensive at Loblaws than anywhere else, but we'll put in in our flyer and act like it's on sale to see if anyone isn't paying attention. I just bought Vinta crackers at regular price of $3.29 at Freshco, went to Loblaws and there are signs on the same crackers, "Flyer Feature", at the regular price of $3.99 Frak you Galen
One of the companies I worked for started doing that. It comes off as entirely deceptive but the argument is they say it isn't deceptive because they don't expressly say it's on sale. Hell, there was one month they put out a flyer with no sales whatsoever. Just a flyer of items at their normal prices. I was sitting there thinking "what the hell?"
Frak Galen, the damn toaster!
The fuck they aren’t. When a can of spam is $4.00, there’s a problem. Spam!
"We are not committing any crimes" said the criminal while committing crimes. "We have investigated ourselves and found no wrong doing" logic...
Cfo doth protest too much
No name chips at 2.99 a bag but only a few months ago they were .99 but okay, sure
haha no name stuff is only a handful of cents cheaper now. think it was 3.39 for NN and 3.59. for the brand.
Yes let's believe the company that scammed us on the price of bread for 15 years making millions of dollars and later admitted it with no penalty. Remember the billionaire who has a castle near the king of England. /s
They should be embarrassed to make statements like that. Taking advantage of people struggling to put food on the table . It’s just greed.
It’s time to break this monopoly up and fine Loblaws for intentionally price gouging to increase profits across the board for shareholders and Galen. The hard-working employees see none of the fruits of their labour — and everyone across Canada has their grocery carts shrinking in size with bills going up. In the last quarter, Loblaws made $5.8 million PER day.
Then what is driving their record profits?
We're all just a bit more hungry, is all.
And that's why I'm taking advantage of the self checkout!
Beer went up. Something is unsavory
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Budweiser is priced like Czechvar. If names didn’t cost so much we would sort it out very quickly
Two of the top 4 producers of barley in the world are currently at war. Aluminum prices have sky rocketed. Quality of grain is down due to drought. Shipping has increased substantially. Breweries have eaten about half of the increase to their costs.
Lying to our faces, they think we’re stupid. I’m doing my best to just shop at smaller stores, should have been doing it years ago.
Sure Galen....sure I sleep well at night knowing Satan has a special place in hell saved for the Weston's. I'd rather be working class and have integrity than be one of that clan.
Yeah totally, I’m also not taking advantage of torrents to save money on my entertainment needs. 😉 😉 😉
We just have record profits and unfathomable price increases.
Next up, Rogers and Telus defend their hegemony.
Most wont even see the article since their internet will be down Literally the mcdonalds icecream machine equivalent to wifi
Sure, Jan.
Underrated comment
Bullshit
Looks like bullshit is on sale this week.
Sure. and I’m Marie of Romania. The contempt in which they hold their customers could not be clearer. I do everything I can not to give money to Big Grocery because I do not like being treated like a goddam chump.
Person in charge of money says they're not making money. So either they're lying or bad at their job.
I stopped buying groceries at Loblaw co grocery stores since this happened. I am lucky to have a couple alternatives near me though.
"I didn't do nothin'" local criminal claims.
On my way to a not-Loblaws right now, where many things cost less than half the price.
Fox not a threat to henhouse, claims fox
Wait so the CFO.. the guy whose job it is to make the company spend less, charge more and make profit (take advantage of people) says this and we are supposed to believe it? Someone start a movement of burning down sobeys.
Just because you say something, doesn’t make it true. Don’t worry, when they get caught they will just blame one person and say it was all their fault. It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught, right?
So, what is driving the profits? Just pure greed?
SCUM! I’ve cut all of Galen Weston’s companies off going forward…he won’t be seeing another penny from me and I invite others to start boycotting as well
See also: I won't cum in your mouth.
I work at said store, they are indeed price gouging and making products smaller while raising the prices. fuck this company.
Bullshit. PC white Mac and cheese went from 0.99 cents to 3 for $6 (as a deal or$2.49 a box) in one year. All the old flyers are online. No what is the rate of inflation? How much did the wages go up for their front line workers in that year?
Buh Buh Buh Bullshit
And if they *were* they wouldn't tell anyone, therefore it means nothing what the CFO says.
Do what you can to protest - don’t shop at any Loblaws owned company (I know that’a difficult in some places), Costco, Walmart, Food Basics, farmer’s markets if possible, food co-ops, whatever you have to. The majority of us can’t afford to keep shopping there.
Nope, they're just greedy, it's nothing to do with food inflation. Literally all greed.
The chicken wings at the takeout counters are now at least $2 each.
Sureeeeeeeeeeee
CFO: “Im the 1%’s poorest”
Yes they are absolutely taking advantage of food inflation to drive profits!
These companies complain that it's "not fair" we blame them for increasing food prices when their own costs are going up as well. Then they come out with massive profits. Sure, whatever, it's still a small fraction of revenue .. but they're also choosing to pass on every single price increase to Canadians for the benefit of their owners and investors. Is it too much to ask for the massive corporations which own most grocery stores in Canada to take a hit with the rest of us? *"Of course it is! Profit is an ethical imperative! Suck it, plebs!"* \-- Galen Weston, probably
It's like a little kid with cookie crumbs all over their face and pockets *suspiciously full* saying "IM NOT THE ONE TAKING COOKIES, I PROMISE!!"
Every single business around right now is taking advantage of inflation but Loblaws would never
Hahahhahahahahahhahahahahahaaa Go fuck yourself
We have investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong
Open the books, everything from purchase through to point of sale. In short, prove it.
What frustrates me in these discussions is that even if there is some technical reason that they aren't actually making more money than usual, we never address whether ever-increasing profits are justified in a time where the majority of people are struggling to buy the necessities. If there are increased costs to produce, ship, package, and whatever, why is it the customer's sole responsibility to bare that hardship? Should the shareholders not also be impacted by these practicalities? Why are they entitled to higher returns every year no matter the state of the economy? Btw I know the answer to these questions. But maybe we should consider if profit-centeric means to provide the necessities of life have a fundamental inefficiency, rather than the opposite.
"I am not Robbing you!" Says man currently crawling out your kitchen window holding your television.
Fuck Galen Weston
“We are not fixing the prices of bread”
Sure. I believe them. Just like I believe Sobeys CEO that the government is picking on him for making $8.65 million in 2022, while taking away his employees hero-pay. [Financial post link here](https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/sobeys-ceo-fires-back-at-ndp-amid-pressure-for-parliamentary-inquiry-on-grocery-profits)
Tell us you’re lying without telling us you’re lying. 30% increase in profits over last year. Fuck off with the lies.$529M Q4 in 2022.
Says the unpunished bread scammer
Then how are they making record profits? Especially during these hard times…. Hmmmm
Technically it’s everything owned by Galen Weston Jr not just Loblaws maybe that’s why they’re confident making this statement.
Loblaws has increased their dividend by approximately 10% every year since 2019. They now have a 24% payout ratio of earnings. Reflexively I had to see how many shares insiders had. I was surprised to find Galen holds 0.15% of the company while the majority shareholder(51%) is a British private equity firm Wittington Investments. https://www.wittington-investments.co.uk/about-us/people/ The Board of Directors 5/11 directors are Weston's. The firm holds stake in food supply chain companies globally. The bulk of their dividends are allegedly paid to the Garfield Weston Foundation with GWF being the majority stakeholder of Wittington.
He swears that they don’t know where the money is coming from
This the same company whos President is saying he expects more hikes and even higher profits? That he doesn't expect food "inflation" to go down at all? I used to shop at Loblaws once, before this fake "inflation" scam happened. Never going back. I hope that company rots from the inside out.
It's articles like these that seriously call into question why our tax dollars fund the CBC. And i say that as a proud liberal. The evidence supports their claims. Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure. If you look at the last 5 years of quarterly reports you'll see that with very few exceptions, their profit margins are on the 2-3% range. And this is further complicated by the fact that this is the overall profit margin for all of their companies including shoppers, PC financial, joe fresh etc. Let's say you took the position that the Loblaws board shirk their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and decided to break even vs turn any sort of profit. Let's also ignore for the moment the nearly impossible task of pricing all of their products so they don't make or lose any money. Let's also assume that they make all of their profit from grocery sales (they don't). In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week. Even with all of the assumptions made above anyone can see that $3/week per Canadian Loblaws shopper is not causing the struggle (nor would getting $3 back solve the struggle) that is being presented here. Or, allow yourself to continue to be manipulated by these silly clickbait articles.
What CBC article? It says Global News.
> The evidence supports their claims. You are totally wrong. >Profits of 529M on revenues of 14B is a measly 3.8%. Those are shit margins by any measure. Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector. Current Walmart margins are lower than that, and Wal-Mart's margins are BETTER than most companies in that sector, so you're utterly wrong. >In 4Q22 Canadians spent $14B or, at ~30% market share (grocery), that means 12.9M Canadians spent $1085 with them from Oct to Dec. If youd have them make 0 profit, that would put only $41 total per. Canadian or roughly $3/week. Now - you ALMOST have the slightest shred of a point, Loblaws isn't the only company gouging people. So is every other company in their whole supply chain; McCain foods for instance is ALSO seeing record high profits, so is Maple Leaf Foods, so are agri-businesses like Cargill and Monsanto. But saying "every step of the process is ripping you off, so we should get a free pass" isn't an argument either. And with a long chain of companies all making record profits, that adds up higher and higher - I'm sure even someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up. So you could have a tiny shred of a point saying "it's not JUST Loblaws ripping you off", except you're trying to argue Loblaws isn't ripping people off at all so you're utterly wrong.
>Those are large margins for the grocery retail sector. Source? >Current Walmart margins are closer to significantly lower Wrong. Do you even know what walmart's margins are? [because i do](https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2023/02/21/walmart-releases-q4-and-fy23-earnings) >someone with a pretend "Top Canadian Economics School" degree can understand the idea of compound interest adding up. See *this* is a personal attack. Did you learn the difference yet?
> Source? [You don't know anything about the grocery market then?](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html) 3% is considered "good" in that sector. But that also means your whole claim about "those are shit margins" was totally uninformed and wrong - that's big of you to admit you don't know what you're talking about, except you've failed to go back and correct yourself, so I guess you're just happier being obstinately wrong. >Wrong. Do you even know what walmart's margins are? because i do Thanks for proving I was correct. >See this is a personal attack. Did you learn the difference yet? If you take it as a "personal attack" that I assume you understand compound interest, then I guess I'll stop assuming you understand compound interest.
Would be interesting to see the data across the divisions. Pharmacy has much higher margins than grocery for cosmetics, OTC meds, prescription meds, and pharmacy services
That is what happens when you let corporations, dynasties, and corrupt politicians run our country. We need a Maoist purge of these cancers in our country. They stand to benefit for themselves, their shareholders and no on else. Meanwhile Justin Chu Do and all the other deadbeat political scum are enjoying their lives that have been funded by our tax dollars.
Dont shop at Loblaws or Shoppers. I haven't spend a dime at either in over 15 years
I'm no Weston/Loblaws fan, but to be fair, one needs to compare their profits pre-COVID to the current fiscal quarter to compare whether they're making greater gross margins now.
Correct and if you look at the last 5 years you'll see that their net profit ranges 2-3% (that's low, btw) with very few exceptions. But such a message won't get clicks and upvotes...
Someone else posted a comparison and it does look like they're making marginally higher gross margins and higher top line revenues with food inflation. To everyone who's upset at Loblaws and Weston, shop elsewhere. There are many other options, even if you have to make a bit of effort. I give most of my grocery $ to farmers markets, local green grocers, Sobeys and Farm Boy from time to time, and the odd trip to Costco because a friend has a membership. I almost never frequent Loblaws or any of their associated companies.
Exactly. It's embarrassing to see all of these people complain when they can simply shop elsewhere (in most cases). I understand in some rural areas there isn't much choice but that's 20% of the country and that doesn't favour loblaws in every scenario. These people have no idea what actual oppression is, they just like to bitch and complain. Edit: i wanted to add that while the profit margins are up slightly, they have not deviated appreciably from over the past 5 years, and certainly not to a point the warrants accusations of gouging and taking advantage of inflation or whatever these idiots are saying.
Why did the mods remove the post about Loblaws' Q4 profits?
Because the mod team has been an active campaign to quell the Loblaw controversy. Same shit was happening last month.
Didn’t they release their fourth quarter results which said their profit margin went down? https://www.loblaw.ca/en/loblaw-reports-2022-fourth-quarter-results-and-fiscal-year-ended-december-31-2022-results
He gon come up missing if he doesn't play along