One of the organizers of the month-long boycott of Loblaw-owned stores said she met with the company’s president and CEO, Per Bank, on Thursday afternoon.
Emily Johnson, who started the Reddit page that led to the boycott, said she had raised consumer concerns and questions with Mr. Bank, who had been in office for a few months.
“Obviously the boycott is still alive,” Ms.me Johnson. [Je suis] confident in the fact that we have people to talk to, that we have their attention and that they listen to what we have to say and what we want to do.”
Loblaw said earlier in the week that it had contacted boycott organizers to schedule a meeting.
Mr. Bank believes the conversation was productive, Loblaw spokeswoman Catherine Thomas said: “We are listening and think it was important to hear his concerns in person.” »
The CEO discussed some of the steps the grocer is taking to try to help customers struggling with the rising cost of living, Mr.me Johnson.
One of these measures is to eliminate “multiple buy” promotions – where customers get a better price per item if they buy more than one item – in No Frills stores.
Customers on tighter budgets can’t take advantage of such deals if they can’t afford four items instead of one, for example, even when the unit price is lower.
“Feedback from customers in these stores was that this did not bring them any benefit (especially since the basket sizes were smaller) and that they appreciated this change,” said Mme Thomas in an email. In other stores, where customers tend to buy more, multiple purchases are often a popular sale. »
Respond to reviews
Mr. Bank and Loblaw Chairman Galen Weston spoke Thursday at the company’s annual general meeting, where they defended themselves against what they called “misguided criticism” of the ‘business.
“Let me assure you that across all areas of the business, our colleagues are working hard to reduce costs and do things more efficiently. These efforts have allowed us to reinvest our savings to offset the impact of price inflation in our stores,” Mr. Bank told shareholders at the meeting.
Mme Johnson started a Reddit page about high food prices in November and it quickly attracted the attention of frustrated customers. It now has tens of thousands of members.
As the number of people in M’s Reddit group increasesme Johnson was growing, calls for boycotts were growing. The official start date of the boycott was 1er May, the same day Loblaw announced its first-quarter profits were up nearly 10% from the same period last year.
Customers are increasingly frustrated with rising food prices and profits being made by grocery stores, and Loblaw is at the epicenter of many of those frustrations.
“As a well-known company and Canada’s largest grocer, it is natural for Loblaw to be held up as an example by the media and the government and, of course, a focus of consumer frustrations,” Mr. Weston said during the Thursday’s meeting.
Against rising prices
Mme Johnson said Loblaw’s meeting request took her by surprise and at first she and other organizers weren’t sure whether she should accept it.
” I said to myself […] : “let’s listen to them,” she said. Because if we’re not here to solve the problem, or we’re not here to try to solve the problem, you know, then why are we boycotting? My goals were to sit down and have a conversation with him, share these perspectives, hear their perspective, and present this information to the community. »
On May 3, the boycotters also launched a petition sponsored by NDP MP Matthew Green calling on parliamentarians to address “monopolistic practices in the food retail sector”, to investigate practices such as as reduflation and allegations of price fixing or collusion, and to implement measures to promote fair competition in the food retail sector.
The goal is also to explore ways to prevent “excessive pricing on essential food products” and force Loblaw and Walmart to sign the grocery code of conduct.
A House of Commons committee studied food prices and the grocery code of conduct and urged the two grocers to adhere to it. And last June, the Competition Bureau released a report on the grocery sector, calling it “concentrated” and making recommendations to improve competition in the industry.
Mme Johnson previously told the Canadian Press that while the main goal of the boycott was to have a financial impact on the company, she also hoped the boycott would educate people and get the government’s attention.