Achi news desk-
A boycott targeting Loblaw is gaining momentum online, with what could be thousands of shoppers taking their money elsewhere in May.
It’s the latest sign of Canada’s growing frustration with the staple vegetable, which has come under political and public scrutiny for rising food prices and profits.
“We don’t want to fight anymore,” said Emily Johnson, a mental health and addictions worker in Milton, Ont., and one of the organizers of the boycott.
Johnson and others began organizing the boycott after a Reddit group she created gained thousands of followers looking for a place to complain about Loblaw and other grocery stores.
The page, r/loblawsisoutofcontrol, now has around 56,000 members. Although there is no way of knowing how many will take part in the boycott, the page is full of posts from people who say they plan to, or have already started. There is also a list of demands to Loblaw from the boycott organizers which include signing a grocer’s code of conduct and committing to affordable prices.
The main goal is to have a financial impact on Loblaw, said Johnson, the largest of the Canadian grocers. But she also hopes that the boycott educates people and gets the government’s attention.
Mississauga resident and community advocate Rahul Mehta was already trying to cut back on shopping at Loblaw-owned stores, and there are plans for a full boycott of the company in May.
He hopes the boycott will drive shoppers not to other big grocery stores, but to local independent stores.
“I think we could potentially see a resurgence in … interest in learning and demanding real choices, not just Metro versus Loblaws,” he said.
Consumers feel increasingly powerless about the lack of choice they have, especially in smaller communities, said Monica LaBarge, an assistant professor at Queen’s University who studies food access and consumer well-being.
“It is unlikely that Loblaws will change … its basic business model as a result of a boycott,” LaBarge said.
But that doesn’t mean the company isn’t taking notice, he added, saying the grocer recently walked back a controversial change to its discounts on products close to their best-by date before after a protest public.
Loblaw president and CEO Per Bank says the company is paying attention to customers and sees them trying to mitigate inflation by trying to sell, buy more private label products and shop at discount stores.
The grocer is responding to these changing behaviors through new promotions and expanding its discount footprint, he said in an interview.
Loblaw has to keep looking for ways to provide value to keep people coming back, he said: “We don’t have a contract with our customers. They can choose to shop elsewhere tomorrow, if they don’t like the offer we are giving.”
Bank says it takes customer complaints personally, and if customers aren’t happy, “that’s something I want to fix.” He added that if one customer really hates Loblaw, “that’s one too many.”
The effect of the boycott on the company may not be immediate, but it could accumulate over time if people’s habits change, LaBarge said.
“That’s where the financial impact is,” he said. “There’s that constant loss of users over time, because they’re very hard to get back once they’re gone.”
LaBarge said she believes the grocers don’t fully understand “how very unhappy their customers are,” and the risk to their reputation.
Some boycott participants were once loyal Loblaw customers, like Willi Fleerakkers, who plans to divest not only Loblaw, but also Metro and Empire stores in May.
“I’ve already switched (to) getting my vegetables and fruit from my local family store,” Fleerakkers said.
He’s not sure the boycott will significantly hit Loblaw’s bottom line, but he thinks it could affect their reputation.
For Ann de Sequeira, the boycott has already begun.
The impetus was Loblaw’s move to lower its discount level on food as it neared its expiration date, he said.
De Squeira, a Torontonian who posts about food on TikTok, said she does a “soft” boycott of the other two major Canadian grocers but has pretty much cut Loblaw out of her life, canceling her PC Financial Mastercard and move her prescriptions from Drug Mart Shoppers.
Walking back, Loblaw showed de Squeira his discount change, if consumers “smell about something loud enough, they have to act,” he said.
Bank acknowledged that Loblaw’s reputation has been popular since the pre-pandemic era, and said it is something the company is looking to rebuild.
He argued that it is easier for customers to “point fingers” at grocers like Loblaw than at other players in the supply chain or global factors that lead to higher prices.
“Everyone knows Loblaws. Everyone knows our chairman (Galen Weston),” he said.
“We (are) a much, much easier target, and we need to live with that and that’s fine.”
Some people are uncertain about the boycott – some aren’t sure it will work, while for others, boycotting Loblaw-owned stores is easier said than done.
Both are true for Halifax resident Tempa Hull. The two closest grocery stores to Hull are Loblaws and Sobeys, and she doesn’t have a car. But she knows that others have even less of a choice.
“Most people don’t have the choice, the time or the money to do this,” he said.
She and her husband are going to try to participate, at least partially. Even though they can’t buy everything they need elsewhere, they plan to cut back on their shopping at Loblaws.
“What I think this proposed boycott is ultimately going to show is that they have us by the throat. That we cannot boycott them because they simply own too many things that we need in order to live and function in society,” said Hull.
“And that right there, if anything, should be the big red flag for the government that they need to get serious about fixing the problem.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on April 29, 2024.
