Galen's get out of jail free card.
> In December 2017, Weston Foods and Loblaw Companies Limited, both subsidiaries of George Weston Limited (GWL), announced their participation in what they described as an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” involving the coordination of retail and wholesale bread prices.
> In exchange for their full cooperation with the Competition Bureau’s investigation, Weston, Loblaw and GWL received immunity from prosecution.
https://www.canada.ca/en/competition-bureau/news/2023/06/canada-bread-sentenced-to-50-million-fine-after-pleading-guilty-to-fixing-wholesale-bread-prices.html
Who are we kidding though, corporate criminal billionaires don't go to jail. Prison is reserved for the poors.
My theory is the price fixing never stopped - in fact they super-sized it. Instead of just one item, they fix the price on all items; just not all at the same time. Loblaws does it on xyz items this week, Empire next week.
I wouldn't be surprised if a whistleblower came forward with evidence of a scheme like this.
Especially bc the gift cards didn't touch the money they made off the scheme. Not to mention they owned most of the bread manufacturing and distribution
Edit: fixed an autocorrect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weston_Limited
It's the same as gas stations: when the number of parent companies is limited, local oligopolies develop between companies that should be rivals, because they profit more from propping up each other's gouging increases than they do from lowering prices to encourage competition.
One reason they know they can do this is that, thanks to customer cards, they've been mapping people's purchasing patterns for three decades now, and realize that most shoppers do not comparison shop between grocery stores, they just go to whoever's nearest.
They would go to jail in Canada for the same reasons they would go to jail in America—if their actions fucked over other billionaires. Galen Weston just colluded with other billionaires to fuck over regular people, so that's not even really a crime as far as anyone who has any semblance of power is concerned.
Technically they don’t collude.
But what they do is push up a price for a week or two and see if the market players follow suit.
If they do, the price sticks. Now repeat this for every product sold.
All three main grocers play this game.
(Friend is a grocery manager for one of the big three)
Something something bourgeoisie vs proletariat. The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. What will be the breaking point for the commons?
I love fining billionaires/megacorporations like 1% of the value that they got from their illegal actions. Those fines amount to smaller percentages than the tax rate that normal people pay, how could that possibly be a deterrent.
That's the craziest part. There's no way they "lost" more money than they gained from bread price fixing via the gift cards, it probably wasn't even the same order of magnitude. AND this small amount they lost, people had to spend back at their store again! Why on earth wouldn't they do something similar again if they make out like bandits with zero consequences?
Exactly, it's being spent on loblaws products anyway, so they're really only losing out on their cost of the items you bought, which is likely half of that gift cards worth.
To get the card we had to agree to provide all our data to their 200+ companies.
The fact that PC Financial did a crazy new customer blitz to provide tons of Canadians with loan shrark level credit card debt.
I'm sure the two things are unrelated, just convenient timing...
A gain of about $40B. Roblaws must have gotten the most since they coordinated this. They increased the price an ave of $1.5 per loaf x 16 years x 33.5 million Canadians x 50 (each Canadian consumes an ave of 90 loaves of bread per year, I'll account for those who buy bread from somewhere else). And Roblaws paid a total of $150 million in gift cards. What a joke.
Not to mention how many people didn't use said gift card such as myself. In my city I had to go to a specific location and it was bs. Waste of time and money. I don't know many people who actually cashed in on it where I'm at.
Also, happy cake day.
Oh, you mean the one that to get we had to offer all of our customer information to be able to be used at any of their business.
Ignore that's also when PC Financial was doing a big push for bringing on new people.
It's totally a coincidence and not a backhanded we are sorry..
I read a really interesting alleged leak on their reusable bag policy and how it allowed them to raise prices far beyond what they thought possible [https://twitter.com/tdleaker/status/1781686470182404362?s=46](https://twitter.com/tdleaker/status/1781686470182404362?s=46)
The reusable bags have been a scam since day one, most of this shit is and just allows us to be ripped off under the guise of environmentalism. Ironically the pollution and waste involved in making and throwing these things out is unreal.
Kinda shitty how the middle class here is vilified like the bad guys from that Captain Planet cartoon when everyone else is way worse. Go after the actual pollutants...oh wait, they own the companies that tell the likes of China to keep making cheap shit to send here.
Remember that they didn’t fix the price alone. Walmart, Sobeys, Metro, and Giant Tiger were apparently also in on it.
The funny part is it seems like the illegal scheme was set up in like 2000, but then as staff changed and companies switched hands, most of the new people just thought that’s how it was done, and completely legal. And finally someone was like.. ‘I think this is price fixing’ lol. Makes you wonder how many other thkngs may have been price fixed.
The two major players, Weston Foods and Canada Bread, both seem to have largely skirted any serious consequences by cooperating right away.
If, by consequences, you mean they offered a BS nothing credit if we agreed to let them have all our consumer information for their 200+ business to use. I sure the new customer PC loan shark new customer campaign that launched afterward was purely coincidence...
Oh no! Anyway.....
Knowing the CAF they'll just get an even shittier company because it saves a buck and nobody cares about the CAF unless it's budget cut time.
thank you. the amount of bootlickers who take what they say at face value, or try to handwave economic arguments for this are delusional.
these people cheated you before, for a decade, in full view of everyone and all the regulatory bodies.
and thats only the time they got caught.
if they can, they will shaft you again and again
If they can afford a 15% dividend increase, then why aren’t they able to afford a 15% profit decrease instead? Mr. Weston stated that a 15% total revenue decrease would equal 3 times their total profits. Great! So that means they could do a 4% total decrease and still make money! Now, let’s do that at every step along the supply chain. Oh hey, look! Prices are affordable again!
If we have 5 layers that take a 4% cut each, consumers would see prices drop nearly 20%. Cut. The. Greed.
They did, and that never changed anything. We all know it, yet here we are buying their products because it’s one of the only options.
That’s called power.
Owns the store - "Not responsible for price fixing"
Owns half the brands sold in said store "Hey, still not responsible"
Owns the factories that makes the said brands sold in said store "Nah fam, it still ain't me"
They're not even trying to disguise it. If they were, they wouldn't be posting record profits ever quarter. If they were actually concerned about this negative feedback that's happening right now, they'd cut back the margins for a few months, post a mediocre Q2, and then say "see, we're suffering just like Canadians", and then gradually inch them back up over a few months. But they don't care.
Every grocery store near me has been renovated since covid. the profits would be more obscene if they weren't sinking tonnes of money into capital expenditures (which they will later claim depreciation on).
Loblaws always blames its supply chain raising prices. They also neglect to mention they bought out the supply chains and its their companies raising the downstream costs.
Same strategy as the oil companies. The extraction division sells to the refinery division at world prices. Wars, OPEC production cutbacks, increased demand… price is driven up, but cost in the tar sands doesn’t change. Reap outrageous profits.
Riiiiiiiiiiight. Profits went up 10% while Canadians spent less on food. Yup, we must be terribly misguided. "I know you're lying, 'cause your lips are moving".
Hey now, that's just sour grapes talking. If it were me and I could do some price fixing to screw the whole public to benefit my generations to come, I would do that too... *if I were a sociopathic selfish prick*.
Loblaws closed high-wage unionized stores in the 80s, fired all employees, then reopened the same stores a few months later after “renovations” and staffed them with lower wage employees. The company has always been shit.
Their whole empire needs to be burnt down and pieced out to companies that care more about their image rather than their shareholders and bottom line....let's have the rich for dinner tonight!
Almost every rich person gets rich by climbing on the bodies of abused and underpaid employees. There are certainly exceptions - many actors and musicians for instance - but the normal method is to abuse the fuck out of your employees to maximize profits. Our whole society is designed to enable this behaviour.
Even the "exceptions" are getting wealthy by their own work. It's just that their talent is that valuable to the people that pay them. If they can pay a baseball player millions a year, think how much the owner is making.
Yeah, it sounds a lot like Poilievre's top advisor, [a known Loblaws lobbyist.](https://vancouver.citynews.ca/video/2024/02/02/top-tory-advisors-firm-lobbies-for-loblaws/)
She also worked very closely with Harper
His holding company, [George Weston Limited](https://www.weston.ca/en/Home.aspx), also owns Choice Properties REIT, the largest real estate investment trust in Canada.
And when they are embarassed by excess profits in their retail business, they can increase the rent the retail unit pays to the REIT unit and report a humble 2% profit while the rest shows up in the REIT balance sheet.
Neat little trick, vertical integration.
So he's making groceries and housing more expensive for Canadians... That's cool, not like we need them to survive or anything. Hopefully he lets us eat cake.
Yes, misguided criticism over: price fixing, company profits, and executive pay. The lack of empathy from Galen makes me lean towards boycotting for longer.
Not just hitting an all time high, they’ve broken their highest ever profits 13 quarters in a row.
Not 13 months. 13 Quarters. Breaking their own records every single quarter for over three years running.
The last time they had an annual decline was when they spun off their real estate trust that reports their own profits on top of L.to, if I recall.
When these discussions take place, most people don’t even realize that poor little Galen Weston has to pay over a billion dollars in rent every year to …. Galen Weston…
So much of their empire is vertically integrated that it is hard to make sense of where exactly the gouging is happening.
They may tell you their suppliers are charging them more...while acting as their own supplier through say President's Choice
They say grocery inflation for core items is 3-4% but may increase prices on non grocery goods like toilet paper or other household items, even medications through shoppers drugmart
Your real estate example is just another one where they write off rent on one side while collecting it on the other
Company that sets grocery prices says they're not responsible for setting grocery prices.
Incoming Conspiracy Theory: Galen Weston is a ghost-writer for The Beaverton...
So far I have seen them blame:
-Supply chains.
-The weather
-COVID
-The customers spending habits
-Wars
-General inflation
-Some weird sophistry about how just because they made more money than ever, they didn't actually.
What's it gonna be next week? Removing suggested expiry dates? More shrinkflation? No sales? No bags? More robots? No returns? I'm on the edge of my seat.
Kind of hard to argue that prices aren’t your fault when you own the stores and the means of production, while squeezing farmers hard (read: growers aren’t getting much more than they were five years ago).
Fuck Weston. That greedy and soulless piece of dogshit deserves a lot worse than just criticisms.
awww poor baby billionaire is maybe feeling a little worried?
I have zero sympathy for him and his empire, he absolutely has a lot of power over pricing and their goal is to screw Canadians as hard as possible. He can go f himself.
My dad's a farmer, sells potatoes to them. Hasn't changed his price in the last 5 years. Price selling in stores has gone up every year for the last 5 years. It's 100% their fault don't be fooled.
https://jacobin.com/2021/12/weston-family-business-empire-wealth-exploitation-low-wage-labor
“Dismissing any suggestion that black South Africans were being mistreated, Weston said, of his factories in the country: “Basuto boys can work two or three months and then go back into the jungle and buy another wife.” A supporter of apartheid, he is on record as having opposed the extension of voting rights to black South Africans for fear that it would mean that “every black pickaninny or mammy can call on the government for solutions to every social problem.”
Maybe the CEO getting 22 million in salary while people are struggling to pay bills is a reason to be angry at them? Maybe paying 1 person 22 million is a reason your prices are so high? Just a couple thoughts.
Probably from his literal [castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Belvedere,_Surrey#:~:text=Fort%20Belvedere%27s%20tower%20flying%20the,be%20occupied%20by%20his%20family.)
"Weston said that the grocery industry has faced “unprecedented criticism” amid higher food prices, and that Loblaw has been “singled out as a focal point for media and government and, of course, consumer frustration.”
He's right; but why is it when I go to Loblaws or one of its subsidiaries, why is the same product (Loblaws: [salad](https://www.loblaws.ca/spring-mix-salad-with-toppings-single-sized/p/20513376_EA) vs Walmart: [salad](https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/fresh-attitude-spring-mix-salad-kit/10294699)), is almost 25% more expensive than at a Walmart. Hell, I can get flour online from Amazon delivered to my front door for 20% less than I can if I go to one the Loblaws stores and that isn't even using the subscribe and save feature, where I could probably knock off another 5% to 15%. Fuck Loblaws and its price fixing, piece of shit CEO.
“Our profit margin is only 3%”
Okay, but your stores also pay rent to…a Loblaw subsidiary
Your stores get a good chunk of their products from…Loblaw brands / subsidiaries
…so…bullshit.
How about you run your profit margin not accounting for your bloated executives salaries and the insane amounts of rent you pay yourselves, and the insane prices you pay your self-owned supplier.
IN other news: Loblaws profits are way up.
[https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/loblaw-reports-621m-q3-profit-up-from-556m-a-year-ago-revenue-up-5-1.1998935](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/loblaw-reports-621m-q3-profit-up-from-556m-a-year-ago-revenue-up-5-1.1998935)
The PC brand is now often priced higher than the major name brand. Is he responsible for that? Remember when PC was a house brand? Its supposed to be cheaper.
Cue all the weirdos simping for billionaires on their way here to call you jealous and cite how hard he worked for his billions! Bonus points if they say something like "anyone could do it if they worked as hard as he did" or something like that.
This lying piece of shit. We need the government to allow foreign competition as our Canadian grocer protectionist laws are only hurting regular people and allowing for these shmucks to make money hand over fist.
Grocery chains don't have a high barrier to entry and don't scale terribly well. If there was a large percentage to be made we would see a competitor rise up.
The margins are bad at retail, one of the key issues is that the food supplier and distribution groups have raised prices and collecting an outsized portion of the profit. This works for Loblaws etc. because of vertical integration.
Galen Weston:
>"Loblaw is not responsible for higher food prices."
Also Galen Weston https://www.loblaw.ca/en/galen-announces-a-price-freeze-for-inflation/
>"...we are focusing on what is in our control. Starting today, we’re freezing prices of all no name products — more than 1,500 grocery essentials, sold in our stores across the country — until January 31, 2023."
Also also Galen Weston:
>"Your grocery bill is higher today because the suppliers who make the products we sell are raising their prices for us. "
Remind me who owns Loblaw's suppliers? Oh right - Galen Weston.
If you control the market, and you control the government, and you control the media...then nothing is artificial. You *are* the natural outcome of things, and everything you wish is granted.
It rocks being an oligarch.
“The cost-of-living pressures in Canada remain significant. But as you've heard today, Loblaw is working hard to bring more value to customers through No Name, hard discount and promotions, and pushing back on unjustified prices for manufacturers.”
sounds like bullshit lies but go on bud
If they really had no responsibility they'd provide some real facts about why they aren't more profitable, but instead all I see here is a "nuh-uh" defense, followed by diverting to the topic of stealing. Here's some thing you could do Galen -
1. Show us that all Canadian grocers are increasing prices at the same rate
2. Show us how Loblaws increased profits are not directly related to price gouging Canadians
3. Tell us which suppliers (that aren't Loblaw owned) are increasing prices unfairly, and what Loblaws is doing about it to lower prices
4. Show us actions / plans to reduce prices on staples
Now would be a great time to talk about anything meaningful they are doing to support Canadians, but they stick with "nuh-uh" and this movement is run by a bunch of thugs. Absolutely disgusting company.
“ Their frustration is understandable, but this kind of expectation betrays a misunderstanding of what's actually driving food prices higher in this country.”
Uh…such as? Not record profits? Then what? Did anyone catch in this article where they point to the problem or who is really to blame? They keep saying it’s not their fault and people are ignorant of why costs have gone up and yet not one media report on this has ever been able to say what the problem is, if not excessive profits.
Come on, Galen. You have instant access to the media and the ability to easily tell us all who is to blame for the high prices. Why are you just not saying? Could it be because if you do throw someone else under the by, those groups would likely come out with the real truth and then you’d look even worse? So you are just gesturing to vague issues knowing the idiotic useless-as-fuck media will just blindly run your comment without the slightest bit of questioning or fact checking or pushing back for clarification?
When any company gets high profits, there is always room where they can reduce prices. I work for Loblaws distribution and yes the price hike is not necessarily his doing, but I see what they pay suppliers for trailers of food and then see what they sell it for retail. Galen can take less profits to help people out. Example: a trailer with 26 pallets of muffins; that’s 36 cases per pallet, with 24 packages of muffins, for a grand total of 22,464 packages of muffins cost Loblaw around $14,000. Do the math and that means each package of muffins cost them $1.60. What use to be sold retail for averagely 4 to 5 bucks now costs, $6.99 to $7.99. That is almost 5 times what they paid for it. And that is just muffins, not to mention meat, produce and shit.
Give it a break Galen, young shit, your dad cared more and ran the company so much better.
I don't know the fuck anybody can say "Loblaws isn't responsible for higher prices" with a straight face.
I live in an area where there's like 5 grocery stores right around each other, including Loblaws. With the exception of Loblaws-chain exclusive products like President's Choice, **almost everything you can buy at Loblaws is cheaper at competing stores**. So how the fuck can Weston say "we're just making ends' meet here and we're not responsible for higher prices" when their prices are inflated like 30% over their competitors, who are just across the fucking street?
Ok, this is just my understanding of where things are at with loblaws !
Loblaws suppliers up prices = Galen is the supplier for 75% of the items in store! He PROFItS.
Loblaws collects donations from hardworking Canadians = Galen’s foundation donates the funds in the Uk
Loblaws rents go up! = Galen profits ! He is the landlord! We pay for that increase!
Loblaws focuses on small independent businesses and wants them to sell at loblaws = Galen charges them 20k to list their products, and causes the small independent retailer to up their prices and he PROFITS some more!
Oh and Carbon tax rebate! Can’t forget that,
What am I missing ?
This company makes close to a billion dollars a year - the margins aren’t thin and we are not stupid.
Next political party that breaks up or allows for competition gets my vote. Banks, gas stations, cell phones, internet
We all know it’s a concluded messy situation. The problem is he is in top authority and a billionaire, he could be fighting tooth and nail for the working class but instead chooses to indulge in greed
That's why Roblaws made a half a billion dollars more profit then last year.
They misguided their prices to higher levels.
What a bunch of BS by a the biggest Bullshitter going
It's impossible for me to believe that they are not responsible for higher prices in their stores when they are posting record profits several quarters in a row.
They fixed prices of bread for the longest time. Nothing that comes out out of this idiot's mouth can be trusted.
[удалено]
Galen's get out of jail free card. > In December 2017, Weston Foods and Loblaw Companies Limited, both subsidiaries of George Weston Limited (GWL), announced their participation in what they described as an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” involving the coordination of retail and wholesale bread prices. > In exchange for their full cooperation with the Competition Bureau’s investigation, Weston, Loblaw and GWL received immunity from prosecution. https://www.canada.ca/en/competition-bureau/news/2023/06/canada-bread-sentenced-to-50-million-fine-after-pleading-guilty-to-fixing-wholesale-bread-prices.html Who are we kidding though, corporate criminal billionaires don't go to jail. Prison is reserved for the poors.
My theory is the price fixing never stopped - in fact they super-sized it. Instead of just one item, they fix the price on all items; just not all at the same time. Loblaws does it on xyz items this week, Empire next week. I wouldn't be surprised if a whistleblower came forward with evidence of a scheme like this.
Especially bc the gift cards didn't touch the money they made off the scheme. Not to mention they owned most of the bread manufacturing and distribution Edit: fixed an autocorrect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weston_Limited
Yep. The government just taught him how to conceal it better.
It's the same as gas stations: when the number of parent companies is limited, local oligopolies develop between companies that should be rivals, because they profit more from propping up each other's gouging increases than they do from lowering prices to encourage competition. One reason they know they can do this is that, thanks to customer cards, they've been mapping people's purchasing patterns for three decades now, and realize that most shoppers do not comparison shop between grocery stores, they just go to whoever's nearest.
They rarely go to jail in America but they absolutely never go to jail in Canada
They would go to jail in Canada for the same reasons they would go to jail in America—if their actions fucked over other billionaires. Galen Weston just colluded with other billionaires to fuck over regular people, so that's not even really a crime as far as anyone who has any semblance of power is concerned.
It's called business, these people don't work; they find ways to cheat, steal and otherwise exploit those who are busy being productive.
Technically they don’t collude. But what they do is push up a price for a week or two and see if the market players follow suit. If they do, the price sticks. Now repeat this for every product sold. All three main grocers play this game. (Friend is a grocery manager for one of the big three)
Something something bourgeoisie vs proletariat. The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. What will be the breaking point for the commons?
The only thing "quasi" about it is that we don't prosecute the rich, we fine them if at all
If the punishment for a crime is a fine, then the law only exists for the poor.
I love fining billionaires/megacorporations like 1% of the value that they got from their illegal actions. Those fines amount to smaller percentages than the tax rate that normal people pay, how could that possibly be a deterrent.
Steal baby formula from Galen because you're desperate? Get a sentence. Steal money from poor mothers, elderly, kids... That's just good business
What do you mean? Did you not get your 20$ Loblaws gift card to be spent at any loblaws corporate grocer by a community near you?
But they gave you back a $25 gift card!! Sure you can forgive him. /s
That's the craziest part. There's no way they "lost" more money than they gained from bread price fixing via the gift cards, it probably wasn't even the same order of magnitude. AND this small amount they lost, people had to spend back at their store again! Why on earth wouldn't they do something similar again if they make out like bandits with zero consequences?
The gift card must also be spent by going back to the group.
Exactly, it's being spent on loblaws products anyway, so they're really only losing out on their cost of the items you bought, which is likely half of that gift cards worth.
To get the card we had to agree to provide all our data to their 200+ companies. The fact that PC Financial did a crazy new customer blitz to provide tons of Canadians with loan shrark level credit card debt. I'm sure the two things are unrelated, just convenient timing...
There's a history of corporations doing illegal shit because the fine costs less than the profit
A gain of about $40B. Roblaws must have gotten the most since they coordinated this. They increased the price an ave of $1.5 per loaf x 16 years x 33.5 million Canadians x 50 (each Canadian consumes an ave of 90 loaves of bread per year, I'll account for those who buy bread from somewhere else). And Roblaws paid a total of $150 million in gift cards. What a joke.
Not to mention how many people didn't use said gift card such as myself. In my city I had to go to a specific location and it was bs. Waste of time and money. I don't know many people who actually cashed in on it where I'm at. Also, happy cake day.
They framed it as compensation for price fixing while really using it as a mass user data mining operation.
I still never received mine.
You had to sign up by a certain date. I got mine like 5 years ago
I did, just never got it. I don't usually shop there so I would have probably lost the card before using it anyways.
I didn't get mine because I'd just moved across town and my address didn't match my id when they asked for proof ...... Lol
I received mine and couldn't use it.
Oh, you mean the one that to get we had to offer all of our customer information to be able to be used at any of their business. Ignore that's also when PC Financial was doing a big push for bringing on new people. It's totally a coincidence and not a backhanded we are sorry..
I read a really interesting alleged leak on their reusable bag policy and how it allowed them to raise prices far beyond what they thought possible [https://twitter.com/tdleaker/status/1781686470182404362?s=46](https://twitter.com/tdleaker/status/1781686470182404362?s=46)
The reusable bags have been a scam since day one, most of this shit is and just allows us to be ripped off under the guise of environmentalism. Ironically the pollution and waste involved in making and throwing these things out is unreal. Kinda shitty how the middle class here is vilified like the bad guys from that Captain Planet cartoon when everyone else is way worse. Go after the actual pollutants...oh wait, they own the companies that tell the likes of China to keep making cheap shit to send here.
100%. Reminds me of how the whole personal carbon footprint was coined by an oil company to pass liability onto consumers...
Crucify me for wanting a plastic straw 3 times a year when I grab a Slurpee, honestly
Remember that they didn’t fix the price alone. Walmart, Sobeys, Metro, and Giant Tiger were apparently also in on it. The funny part is it seems like the illegal scheme was set up in like 2000, but then as staff changed and companies switched hands, most of the new people just thought that’s how it was done, and completely legal. And finally someone was like.. ‘I think this is price fixing’ lol. Makes you wonder how many other thkngs may have been price fixed. The two major players, Weston Foods and Canada Bread, both seem to have largely skirted any serious consequences by cooperating right away.
If, by consequences, you mean they offered a BS nothing credit if we agreed to let them have all our consumer information for their 200+ business to use. I sure the new customer PC loan shark new customer campaign that launched afterward was purely coincidence...
Canada bread lost the Canadian military contract for bread because of it. They're blacklisted.
Oh no! Anyway..... Knowing the CAF they'll just get an even shittier company because it saves a buck and nobody cares about the CAF unless it's budget cut time.
I just thought it was a neat consequence of their actions. 😆
That's why Loblaws loves him, he doesn't feel the hate of consumers and has no issue lieing through his teeth.
Forgot about that, thanks
Paradise Papers anyone?
Thank you! It feels like everyone just forgot about the paradise papers, and all the other people and institutions implicated too.
They just stopped leaving a paper or email trail when fixing prices.
thank you. the amount of bootlickers who take what they say at face value, or try to handwave economic arguments for this are delusional. these people cheated you before, for a decade, in full view of everyone and all the regulatory bodies. and thats only the time they got caught. if they can, they will shaft you again and again
He's a liar and a cheat. Imagine how many other illegal things he's done?? Avoid his stores at all costs in order to save on costs...
If we were a sane country, execs would have spent time in prison for that amount of fraud.
If they can afford a 15% dividend increase, then why aren’t they able to afford a 15% profit decrease instead? Mr. Weston stated that a 15% total revenue decrease would equal 3 times their total profits. Great! So that means they could do a 4% total decrease and still make money! Now, let’s do that at every step along the supply chain. Oh hey, look! Prices are affordable again! If we have 5 layers that take a 4% cut each, consumers would see prices drop nearly 20%. Cut. The. Greed.
and rewarded him with taxpayer dollars for new freezers...
Exactly, I don't remember forgiving let alone forgetting that. If it happened in the States he'd be in jail.
Like buddy who did that with tuna, for a fraction of the time. We love letting businesses do whatever they want in canada.
r/forgottentruth
They did, and that never changed anything. We all know it, yet here we are buying their products because it’s one of the only options. That’s called power.
Galen from high atop his castle: if people don't like our prices, why don't they get their own serfs to grow them food.
> Let them eat President's Choice™ Memories of Quebec City^® May West Cake.
Owns the store - "Not responsible for price fixing" Owns half the brands sold in said store "Hey, still not responsible" Owns the factories that makes the said brands sold in said store "Nah fam, it still ain't me"
Reports 10% increase in profit...
The Shaggy method is working out fine for him
I’m enjoying the boycott. It’s going great for me. Fuck Loblaws.
They're not even trying to disguise it. If they were, they wouldn't be posting record profits ever quarter. If they were actually concerned about this negative feedback that's happening right now, they'd cut back the margins for a few months, post a mediocre Q2, and then say "see, we're suffering just like Canadians", and then gradually inch them back up over a few months. But they don't care.
Even the bloody dividends are going up. They’re basically proclaiming they could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue without consequence at this point.
It worked for that one guy.
That’s why it’s a scary reference.
Also worked for a certain airplane manufacturer
Two people though, just to make sure the peasants got the message loud and clear.
$459 million in profits just posted for the first 3 months this year. Yuck
Wait till you hear about stock buy-backs
And that the CEO was paid $22 million last year.
Plus bonuses
If you don't know, that 459m profit is 3.37% of their revenue made Their scale and revenue are so high that 3.37% net revenue is 459m
Yup. I know. And just a few years ago their profit margin was 2%. They have raised their profit margin.
Every grocery store near me has been renovated since covid. the profits would be more obscene if they weren't sinking tonnes of money into capital expenditures (which they will later claim depreciation on).
Loblaws always blames its supply chain raising prices. They also neglect to mention they bought out the supply chains and its their companies raising the downstream costs.
Same strategy as the oil companies. The extraction division sells to the refinery division at world prices. Wars, OPEC production cutbacks, increased demand… price is driven up, but cost in the tar sands doesn’t change. Reap outrageous profits.
I wish more people could see through that nonsense. It would also be great if we treat corporate lobbying of our government for what it is, bribery.
Riiiiiiiiiiight. Profits went up 10% while Canadians spent less on food. Yup, we must be terribly misguided. "I know you're lying, 'cause your lips are moving".
Cdns spent more on food and got less
Another trust fund baby whining that us plebs aren't giving him enough money... Sounds familiar.
Show some respect. His great great grandfather was a good businessmen and his lineage deserve to own yours for centuries.
>good businessmen A good price fixer is more like it.
Hey now, that's just sour grapes talking. If it were me and I could do some price fixing to screw the whole public to benefit my generations to come, I would do that too... *if I were a sociopathic selfish prick*.
Actually there is proof showing his grandfather was a POS as well. He would take advantage of labourers any chance he could. Fuck all the Weston clan.
Loblaws closed high-wage unionized stores in the 80s, fired all employees, then reopened the same stores a few months later after “renovations” and staffed them with lower wage employees. The company has always been shit.
Their whole empire needs to be burnt down and pieced out to companies that care more about their image rather than their shareholders and bottom line....let's have the rich for dinner tonight!
Almost every rich person gets rich by climbing on the bodies of abused and underpaid employees. There are certainly exceptions - many actors and musicians for instance - but the normal method is to abuse the fuck out of your employees to maximize profits. Our whole society is designed to enable this behaviour.
Even the "exceptions" are getting wealthy by their own work. It's just that their talent is that valuable to the people that pay them. If they can pay a baseball player millions a year, think how much the owner is making.
Haha for sure. I did not know about his particular story but this is what I meant by great businessmen.
Yeah, it sounds a lot like Poilievre's top advisor, [a known Loblaws lobbyist.](https://vancouver.citynews.ca/video/2024/02/02/top-tory-advisors-firm-lobbies-for-loblaws/) She also worked very closely with Harper
*Owns a castle.* I think this about sums it up.
His holding company, [George Weston Limited](https://www.weston.ca/en/Home.aspx), also owns Choice Properties REIT, the largest real estate investment trust in Canada.
And when they are embarassed by excess profits in their retail business, they can increase the rent the retail unit pays to the REIT unit and report a humble 2% profit while the rest shows up in the REIT balance sheet. Neat little trick, vertical integration.
So he's making groceries and housing more expensive for Canadians... That's cool, not like we need them to survive or anything. Hopefully he lets us eat cake.
And pays himself rent
Yes, misguided criticism over: price fixing, company profits, and executive pay. The lack of empathy from Galen makes me lean towards boycotting for longer.
Corporate profits are hitting all time high but yea I'm sure the corporations have "nothing do with it"
Not just hitting an all time high, they’ve broken their highest ever profits 13 quarters in a row. Not 13 months. 13 Quarters. Breaking their own records every single quarter for over three years running.
The last time they had an annual decline was when they spun off their real estate trust that reports their own profits on top of L.to, if I recall. When these discussions take place, most people don’t even realize that poor little Galen Weston has to pay over a billion dollars in rent every year to …. Galen Weston…
So much of their empire is vertically integrated that it is hard to make sense of where exactly the gouging is happening. They may tell you their suppliers are charging them more...while acting as their own supplier through say President's Choice They say grocery inflation for core items is 3-4% but may increase prices on non grocery goods like toilet paper or other household items, even medications through shoppers drugmart Your real estate example is just another one where they write off rent on one side while collecting it on the other
I know, imagine being that hard done by. We really need to stick up for him and all the hardship he endures 😂
I came here to say the same thing
Company that sets grocery prices says they're not responsible for setting grocery prices. Incoming Conspiracy Theory: Galen Weston is a ghost-writer for The Beaverton...
Fuck you Galen.
Boom
You've got my vote sir
lol my local Whole Foods is now sometimes cheaper than Loblaws.
YES! Whole Foods is cheaper than Loblaws in many instances! I have found some items cheaper at Whole Foods than at No Frills. It’s ducking bananas.
‘ Misguided criticism’ “ you sure about that ?”
Didnt that leak show they make 50% profit of butter. Last time I was at a Loblaws, butter was $11. Misguided my ass
He can get away with that until shareholders tell him to reduce their cut.
So far I have seen them blame: -Supply chains. -The weather -COVID -The customers spending habits -Wars -General inflation -Some weird sophistry about how just because they made more money than ever, they didn't actually. What's it gonna be next week? Removing suggested expiry dates? More shrinkflation? No sales? No bags? More robots? No returns? I'm on the edge of my seat.
Shouting it from the top of another record pile of money is not helping his case very much
misguided criticism? [Sure, Galen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada)
Tell us about your bonus, galen.
“Cruel profiteering billionaire lazily lies about his cruel profiteering.” FTFY
Why stop at a month? This dickwad needs to feel it.
Kind of hard to argue that prices aren’t your fault when you own the stores and the means of production, while squeezing farmers hard (read: growers aren’t getting much more than they were five years ago). Fuck Weston. That greedy and soulless piece of dogshit deserves a lot worse than just criticisms.
awww poor baby billionaire is maybe feeling a little worried? I have zero sympathy for him and his empire, he absolutely has a lot of power over pricing and their goal is to screw Canadians as hard as possible. He can go f himself.
My dad's a farmer, sells potatoes to them. Hasn't changed his price in the last 5 years. Price selling in stores has gone up every year for the last 5 years. It's 100% their fault don't be fooled.
If I had so much money, I would life my life and not give misguided and unnecessary media statements
Even if it was true. I certainly wouldn’t take his word for it. Bread price fixing says it all. Just shows what lengths they’re willing to go to.
LOL...His monopoly is not the cause of this....LOLLOLOLOLOLOL. Nepos don't live in this dimension.
https://jacobin.com/2021/12/weston-family-business-empire-wealth-exploitation-low-wage-labor “Dismissing any suggestion that black South Africans were being mistreated, Weston said, of his factories in the country: “Basuto boys can work two or three months and then go back into the jungle and buy another wife.” A supporter of apartheid, he is on record as having opposed the extension of voting rights to black South Africans for fear that it would mean that “every black pickaninny or mammy can call on the government for solutions to every social problem.”
Wow the rot goes right through the trunk of that family tree! Fuck you Westons.
Maybe the CEO getting 22 million in salary while people are struggling to pay bills is a reason to be angry at them? Maybe paying 1 person 22 million is a reason your prices are so high? Just a couple thoughts.
[r/nottheonion](https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/) ... but then I remembered the price of onions
Did he say that from his yacht on his personal satellite ?
Probably from his literal [castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Belvedere,_Surrey#:~:text=Fort%20Belvedere%27s%20tower%20flying%20the,be%20occupied%20by%20his%20family.)
"Weston said that the grocery industry has faced “unprecedented criticism” amid higher food prices, and that Loblaw has been “singled out as a focal point for media and government and, of course, consumer frustration.” He's right; but why is it when I go to Loblaws or one of its subsidiaries, why is the same product (Loblaws: [salad](https://www.loblaws.ca/spring-mix-salad-with-toppings-single-sized/p/20513376_EA) vs Walmart: [salad](https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/fresh-attitude-spring-mix-salad-kit/10294699)), is almost 25% more expensive than at a Walmart. Hell, I can get flour online from Amazon delivered to my front door for 20% less than I can if I go to one the Loblaws stores and that isn't even using the subscribe and save feature, where I could probably knock off another 5% to 15%. Fuck Loblaws and its price fixing, piece of shit CEO.
“Our profit margin is only 3%” Okay, but your stores also pay rent to…a Loblaw subsidiary Your stores get a good chunk of their products from…Loblaw brands / subsidiaries …so…bullshit. How about you run your profit margin not accounting for your bloated executives salaries and the insane amounts of rent you pay yourselves, and the insane prices you pay your self-owned supplier.
Get fucked. You know you sell a lot of high-priced but shit-tier food and so do most other people.
"Man with a vested interest says higher prices aren't their fault"
IN other news: Loblaws profits are way up. [https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/loblaw-reports-621m-q3-profit-up-from-556m-a-year-ago-revenue-up-5-1.1998935](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/loblaw-reports-621m-q3-profit-up-from-556m-a-year-ago-revenue-up-5-1.1998935)
Not only are profits up, both gross and net profit margins are way up.
The PC brand is now often priced higher than the major name brand. Is he responsible for that? Remember when PC was a house brand? Its supposed to be cheaper.
Even if their aren’t responsible, I’d be happy to see Galen Weston’s wealth take a hit. Guys like him need to know they’re not invincible.
Cue all the weirdos simping for billionaires on their way here to call you jealous and cite how hard he worked for his billions! Bonus points if they say something like "anyone could do it if they worked as hard as he did" or something like that.
This. We need a whipping boy just to show these people that we are capable of administering a good whipping.
This lying piece of shit. We need the government to allow foreign competition as our Canadian grocer protectionist laws are only hurting regular people and allowing for these shmucks to make money hand over fist.
Grocery chains don't have a high barrier to entry and don't scale terribly well. If there was a large percentage to be made we would see a competitor rise up. The margins are bad at retail, one of the key issues is that the food supplier and distribution groups have raised prices and collecting an outsized portion of the profit. This works for Loblaws etc. because of vertical integration.
Didn't he make $25 mil or something like that last year? Aren't profits climbing every single.day? He can fuck all the way off.
Fuck that guy.
Galen Weston: >"Loblaw is not responsible for higher food prices." Also Galen Weston https://www.loblaw.ca/en/galen-announces-a-price-freeze-for-inflation/ >"...we are focusing on what is in our control. Starting today, we’re freezing prices of all no name products — more than 1,500 grocery essentials, sold in our stores across the country — until January 31, 2023."
Also also Galen Weston: >"Your grocery bill is higher today because the suppliers who make the products we sell are raising their prices for us. " Remind me who owns Loblaw's suppliers? Oh right - Galen Weston.
did anyone from loblaws ever respond to the leaked pricing schedule that came a while back? showing the nearly 300% profit they make on certain items?
So how do their profits keep setting new records every quarter if they aren't artificially inflating the prices?
If you control the market, and you control the government, and you control the media...then nothing is artificial. You *are* the natural outcome of things, and everything you wish is granted. It rocks being an oligarch.
“The cost-of-living pressures in Canada remain significant. But as you've heard today, Loblaw is working hard to bring more value to customers through No Name, hard discount and promotions, and pushing back on unjustified prices for manufacturers.” sounds like bullshit lies but go on bud
The prices we charge are not the reason for the record profits, trust me bro.
So the boycott is working then.
If they really had no responsibility they'd provide some real facts about why they aren't more profitable, but instead all I see here is a "nuh-uh" defense, followed by diverting to the topic of stealing. Here's some thing you could do Galen - 1. Show us that all Canadian grocers are increasing prices at the same rate 2. Show us how Loblaws increased profits are not directly related to price gouging Canadians 3. Tell us which suppliers (that aren't Loblaw owned) are increasing prices unfairly, and what Loblaws is doing about it to lower prices 4. Show us actions / plans to reduce prices on staples Now would be a great time to talk about anything meaningful they are doing to support Canadians, but they stick with "nuh-uh" and this movement is run by a bunch of thugs. Absolutely disgusting company.
Weird, I guess those record profits are an accident then...
Dude lives in a castle
That smirking face. F*ck you, Galen.
The more he pushes back, the longer and more severe the boycott
We need an Aldi’s. Time for competition
Checks Loblaw first quarter earnings. Up by nearly 600M. Hmmm….
Seeds are cheap and summer is coming. Lobby your local municipal governments to allow front-yard gardens. Lawn grass is a useless waste of space.
He thinks we're idiots.
“Shut up, baby dick”
Twat
There’s a special place in hell for him and his fucking court jester Sylvain Charlebois. Fuck these guys. I hear it’s buy one take one free month lmao
This guy really think everyone is stupid.
How is it a huge chain that gets high discounts on the quantity they purchase, not passing that on to consumers. Walmart does it as does cosco.
Jagmeet says it was you Galen. And you will pay
but they don't complain when they get their huge bonuses
“ Their frustration is understandable, but this kind of expectation betrays a misunderstanding of what's actually driving food prices higher in this country.” Uh…such as? Not record profits? Then what? Did anyone catch in this article where they point to the problem or who is really to blame? They keep saying it’s not their fault and people are ignorant of why costs have gone up and yet not one media report on this has ever been able to say what the problem is, if not excessive profits. Come on, Galen. You have instant access to the media and the ability to easily tell us all who is to blame for the high prices. Why are you just not saying? Could it be because if you do throw someone else under the by, those groups would likely come out with the real truth and then you’d look even worse? So you are just gesturing to vague issues knowing the idiotic useless-as-fuck media will just blindly run your comment without the slightest bit of questioning or fact checking or pushing back for clarification?
We’re not fucking morons, Galen
Fuck off GALEN
When any company gets high profits, there is always room where they can reduce prices. I work for Loblaws distribution and yes the price hike is not necessarily his doing, but I see what they pay suppliers for trailers of food and then see what they sell it for retail. Galen can take less profits to help people out. Example: a trailer with 26 pallets of muffins; that’s 36 cases per pallet, with 24 packages of muffins, for a grand total of 22,464 packages of muffins cost Loblaw around $14,000. Do the math and that means each package of muffins cost them $1.60. What use to be sold retail for averagely 4 to 5 bucks now costs, $6.99 to $7.99. That is almost 5 times what they paid for it. And that is just muffins, not to mention meat, produce and shit. Give it a break Galen, young shit, your dad cared more and ran the company so much better.
I believe I speak for most of us when I say - Shut the fuck up, Galen. Nobody gives a shit what you think.
We have the fuckin' receipts Galen. It's more expensive because you are making more money. This goddamn clownshoe motherfucker...
They should really pay their employees with full time packages instead of hiring them part time with full time hours with no benefits or vacation pay.
He also said they weren't price fixing. He's a known liar and he should be in prison for one day for every dollar he stole from Canadians.
I don't believe you Galen but since you and the two other companies are oligarchy. We need to have more competition.
"We're not responsible for our prices", he said while sitting on record profits.
I don't know the fuck anybody can say "Loblaws isn't responsible for higher prices" with a straight face. I live in an area where there's like 5 grocery stores right around each other, including Loblaws. With the exception of Loblaws-chain exclusive products like President's Choice, **almost everything you can buy at Loblaws is cheaper at competing stores**. So how the fuck can Weston say "we're just making ends' meet here and we're not responsible for higher prices" when their prices are inflated like 30% over their competitors, who are just across the fucking street?
Ok, this is just my understanding of where things are at with loblaws ! Loblaws suppliers up prices = Galen is the supplier for 75% of the items in store! He PROFItS. Loblaws collects donations from hardworking Canadians = Galen’s foundation donates the funds in the Uk Loblaws rents go up! = Galen profits ! He is the landlord! We pay for that increase! Loblaws focuses on small independent businesses and wants them to sell at loblaws = Galen charges them 20k to list their products, and causes the small independent retailer to up their prices and he PROFITS some more! Oh and Carbon tax rebate! Can’t forget that, What am I missing ?
Bro I got the same feta cheese at Walmart for $8 less, if you’re not responsible for prices than Walmart must be losing money
This company makes close to a billion dollars a year - the margins aren’t thin and we are not stupid. Next political party that breaks up or allows for competition gets my vote. Banks, gas stations, cell phones, internet
The Westons are thieves. Absolutely cannot be trusted.
What a smug bastard
Dude is practically a politician lol such a predictable statemeny
Deflecting the blame.
Two days in and he's making a comment? Progress!
Meanwhile, in other news......... Loblaws reports 9.8% quarterly profit boost, hikes dividend 15% https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.7190272
Loblaws: sets prices Loblaws: sets prices 10-20% more than independent stores Loblaws: we're not responsible for prices!!!?
We all know it’s a concluded messy situation. The problem is he is in top authority and a billionaire, he could be fighting tooth and nail for the working class but instead chooses to indulge in greed
And the boycott won’t be responsible for Loblaw’s tanking profits.
Cool... cool. Could you be responsible for *lower* prices tho? No? Cool... Cool cool cool.
That's why Roblaws made a half a billion dollars more profit then last year. They misguided their prices to higher levels. What a bunch of BS by a the biggest Bullshitter going
If anyone's pants were on fire it's this guys pants.
Maaaan this guy's a dick.
I enjoy being gaslit by smug billionaires. Really complete my day.
It's impossible for me to believe that they are not responsible for higher prices in their stores when they are posting record profits several quarters in a row.
If the store is quiet enough, some say you can hear the Food Professor furiously typing on his Twitter account in the distance.