At the start of May, members of the Reddit group r/loblawsisoutofcontrol began an organized boycott of Canada’s largest grocer. Their list of demands includes price caps on essential items, a commitment to end price gouging, and transparency around things like shrinkflation. They’re also calling on Loblaw to sign the Grocer’s Code of Conduct — a mild regulatory framework the firm has been actively and publicly obstructing.
It’s easy to understand where the hostility toward Loblaws comes from. Over the past decade, the company has earned a poor reputation through a series of self-inflicted PR fiascos. There was, for example, the bread price-fixing scandal, its move to promote hero pay for workers and then rescind it, its testing of receipt scanners that force customers to prove they haven’t stolen anything before leaving the store, its refusal to fully co-operate with the Competition Bureau’s market study, a discount-sticker snafu, and a recent, abandoned attempt to make Shoppers Drug Mart the only place to fill certain drug prescriptions through Manulife insurance. Then there’s the public persona of CEO Galen Weston Jr., whom many see as the face of inherited wealth.
There’s a reason the public doesn’t hate Eric La Flèche or Michael Medline: it doesn’t know who they are. The CEOs of Sobeys and Metro (who are probably about to have a tremendous sales month), didn’t put a target on their backs by starring in commercials.
After Weston’s performance at a House of Commons committee last year, when he said that the company makes only $1 of profit on every “$25 grocery basket” (yes, profits on food retail are slim, but the company’s 2023 revenue was $58.3 billion), he was replaced by new CEO Per Bank. If that was meant to remove the bullseye, this boycott suggests that strategy was unsuccessful.
Between the three companies that control 60 per cent of food retail in Canada, Loblaw is the largest, with 27 per cent of the market. So if these companies are going to be disliked, the largest and most visible one will be the most disliked. And the resentment toward Weston will linger long after he’s stepped out of the spotlight.Is there a path toward the company regaining the public’s trust? Sure.
Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University's Master of Public Policy and Digital Society program, has some recommendations. She suggests that the company guarantee a price freeze on a core basket of goods, pay its workers more, and offer transparency around shrinkflation — which France has done via a law that requires retailers to place signs in front of products that have been reduced in size without a corresponding price reduction.
Or, of course, Loblaw could defeat the Nazis, solve climate change, or make another season of Ted Lasso. People love Ted Lasso.
But Loblaw has demonstrated over the past year of cost-saving schemes destined to insult shoppers that it doesn’t seem to think it needs to care about public opinion.
Bill C-56 — the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act — which was introduced last fall, includes major reforms to help block the rubber stamping of corporate mergers and the property controls that grocery giants use to prevent competition (e.g., if you rent to us, don’t rent to anyone else selling food nearby).
This bill is a big deal. It shows that the government might be getting serious about anti-trust in food retail. But these are long-term measures. It’s like planting a tree that’ll bear fruit years from now: it won’t bring down the price of apples tomorrow. So it won’t seem very juicy to the 18 per cent of Canadians experiencing food insecurity today.
As a partial measure, the boycott group promoted Local Grocer Day on May 12. But most of us have little choice in where we shop for groceries. Loblaw is the biggest player. And factors like property controls are why a Loblaw store may be the only place to buy food in your community. It’s an economic privilege to be able to shop somewhere else, to buy direct from local farms, or to have enough land to grow your own food. Having said that, a boycott isn’t only about meeting the stated goals of organizers. It’s about using voices collectively. With that in mind, here’s something that anyone can do for free, while shopping at Loblaws:
Ask to speak with the manager and tell them how you feel about their receipt-scanner proposal. Tell them you don’t want to be treated like a crook when buying groceries. Tell them you understand that automating cashiers has led to increased theft — and that their attempts to link this to organized crime lack evidence. In fact, doubling down on automating cashiers by automating security in this way may expose them to legal penalties.
My hope is that an action like would show business leaders there is a cost to refusing to care about how their constituency feels about them. I don’t see Loblaw reducing food prices, other than in some carefully designed PR strategy. But maybe it could stop obstructing the Grocers Code of Conduct? And, hopefully, the company will think twice about the next scheme it knows will anger and frustrate Canadians struggling to afford food.
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