I do not want, in any way, to minimize the extremely serious problems in #Canada's #grocery industry; it is far too vertically integrated, also true on the global food production level.
That said, can we all please think back to 2020-2022? How governments the world over opened the spigots and printed money, trying to avoid a recession while also galvanizing response to #COVID-19?
Runaway inflation was extremely likely.
Except wages.
#Journalists need to mention this.
@Amgine "five grocery chains control 75% of the market. Shoppers have few choices, making it easier for retailers to raise prices without losing customers ..
Retail Council of Canada, claimed that: “The combined roles of cost spikes for feed, fuel, and fertilizer, compounded by supply chain disruptions, labour shortages and climate events have been the real drivers of food price inflation and higher costs.”
If that is true, prices paid to farmers should have increased more than the general rate of inflation. Data compiled by the National Farmers Union shows that they have not.
Over the past 30 years the retail price of bread has increased 50%, while Canadian farmers have not seen an equivalent increase in the price of the wheat that they sell at the elevator. The values of farm products have decreased relative to other consumer items"
There is a lot more in this than just that.
For example, contract farming - a farmer raises a product they do not own - a corporation is paying for everything, including the risks, while the farm does the work involved.
The crop is delivered to a contract processor, who never bought the crop, they are just doing the work. The product then goes to a distributor who, again, doesn't own it, but manages its storage and shipping to stores.
And the big chains, who owned it every step.
Can confirm, as someone that maintains manufacturing plants. A large locked room contains the labels of hundreds of brands and contracts are scheduled for the production floor to make it happen. Some brands stipulate more QA checks, control over quality ingredients, and processing, some don't. Take a guess which retailers don't care about quality and safety and you are likely correct. There are a few places where I buy my food anymore, because I know they verify QA ruthlessly from experience.
If you want to know the grocery stores that sell low quality foods, walk through the aisles and check the ingredients on the middle shelves. If ingredients are mostly from whole foods, good.
I used to do food contract research for ultra processed food production for patents. Basically, reclaiming wastes from industrial processes back into the food industry. Not that bad in moderation, but some foods on the middle shelf are the entire dumpster pit of the cheapest reclaimed highly processed proteins, sugars, and fibers that should have been sent out to compost and skip the hog farms too. Where does metabolic disorders start? The most popular preservative (phosphoric acid) in "soft drinks" works by killing mitochondria in bacteria. Guess what it does in humans? Yeah. Avoid USA products, because this is over 50% what is sold here. Food safety laws here are a joke. Diabetes is no joke.
