Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro and Costco sell about 67 cents of every dollar Canadians spend on groceries, by a USDA estimate. The four biggest US food retailers sell about 35 cents.
If you ever see an item in the grocery store that says “Prepared in Canada”, it means nothing of value, avoid them for their deceptive practices.
Depending on where you live there are likely farmers’ markets and/or local producers within a reasonable drive. In my experience it can range as far as price, and flavour is almost always better.
At least it’s a way to reduce reliance and dependence on this oligopoly.
And people in farmers markets have been caught just purchasing produce from the store and reselling it.
This is simply the result of Canadian cities with overly anti-small business policies. The fact that you can’t just run a business anywhere, or that you require to have a license from the municipal/city, or even have a permit for a sign out on the street, have a permit for x style of signage, etc. all for the sake of the look-and-feel of a city… is anti-business. It puts barriers in front of lower budget mom/pop stores.
Go out of North America, and you’ll see that when overbearing policies are removed, small businesses thrive, cost of goods go down , and more variety are available to the consumer.
This extends beyond just the grocery market.
Those are all reasonable and necessary restrictions though, not sure why you think they’re burdensome. Things like accessibility, traffic, public safety, etc are part of operating a business.
Part of operating a brick and mortar business yes, but digital is largely unregulated.
Brick and mortar then largely gets captured by large corporations and main Street gets hollowed out.
Public safety is important! But municipalities should be approving permits same day and making processes as simple as possible, and use standardized non bespoke rules.
Accessibility… also important! But there should be more carve outs for small operators. It’s one of those things that sounds nice but has actually caused things to be less accessible. Having an empty closed store front is the opposite of accessible.
Just wanted to point out an iconic quote from BC Green Leader from tonight’s debate, said towards the other two candidates “Neither of you have the guts to stand up to Big Grocery and it shows”.
Bless Emily Lowan fr.
costco is surprising its so big in canada.
We don’t really have a good wholesale alternative. I think Loblaws has one but not many locations (at least in western Canada).
I respect Costco’s labour policies a whole lot more than any of those other ones anyway.
