'I can't afford to buy fresh produce': Calgarians rally against high grocery prices

Calgarians gathered in the Beltlineon Saturday to protest high grocery prices and call for more stringent regulations on Canada's major grocery chains.

Rally goers held up signs as they marched down 17 Avenue S.W. that read "Stop the grocery gouge!" and "It is a privilege to be wealthy. It is a right to be fed."

The demonstration comes in the wake of a $500 million antitrust class action settlement paid by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company George Weston Ltd. for their involvement in a bread price-fixing scheme.

Maggy Wlodarczyk, chair of the Calgary chapter of the Alberta Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), who organized the rally, says people are sick and tired of paying high prices for food while grocery chains rake in massive profits.

"I don't think it's fair," Wlodarczyk said.

"A basic necessity of life isn't really something that people should be profiting off of to the extent that there's people struggling to feed themselves and their families."

ACORN is calling for higher taxes on excessive grocery chain profits and caps on the prices of certain 'essential' foods such as bread, milk, meat, and fresh vegetables.

Wlodarczyk says she personally feels the effects of soaring prices on groceries.

"I can't afford to buy fresh produce from a grocery store anymore," she said.

"If I can't afford that, I'm probably going to end up having to go to a food bank, as many other people have."

Rally organizers said about 50 people were originally expected to join the protest, however with rainy conditions in the forecast, about 20 showed up.

Kavin Sheikheldin, who attended the rally on Saturday, says she supports ACORN in calling for grocery prices to be lowered.

"Lots of stores across this country are really increasing prices on groceries and it's not right, especially for low income Canadians like me," she said.

Sheikheldin adds that buying groceries to fit her diet is especially pricey. Because she has celiac disease, she can only eat foods that are gluten-free, which are often more expensive than their standard counterparts.

She says high grocery prices have affected her mentally as well as financially, as she can only afford to buy fresh produce once per month.

"I've been to [food banks], but food banks do not have options especially for people like me who have allergies," Sheikheldin said.

"There needs to be more options for people with gluten, peanut, lactose allergies, et cetera."

Would windfall taxes, caps on food prices work? Expert says it's not that simple

Placing additional taxes on a corporation that is benefiting from an economic conditionsuch as inflation is called a windfall tax.

Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says imposing that levy on major grocers may not be the solution people are looking for when it comes to lowering grocery prices.

Charlebois says when it comes to grocers, margins are too low for them not to do anything but absorb a possible windfall tax.

"It is highly likely that consumers would end up paying for that tax," he said. "There are so many fiscal measures that companies can apply to avoid paying taxes."

As for potentially capping prices on certain foods, Charlebois says that kind of thing must be handled with extreme care. He uses Quebec's regulation of milk prices as an example of the kind of impact that would have.

"It is the only province where fluid milk is actually regulated, and it is ...the most expensive in the country. Why? Because the way they set prices, they allow stakeholders to basically express concerns about costs," he said. "And in the end, consumers have little say I don't see how consumers can win when you actually cap prices."

Charlebois says the answer to lowering grocery prices and increasing competition between major grocers likely lies in the grocery code of conduct, an agreement that Loblaw, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart, and Costco have recently signed on to.

The code of conduct includes provisions for fair and ethical dealing and commercial agreements between grocery retailers and suppliers.

If properly adhered to, it should, according to Charlebois, "discipline" the market, allowing smaller manufacturers and independent grocers a fairer chance at selling groceries. This would increase the number of products in the market, increase competition, and stabilize food prices over time.

"To me, the code of conduct is our best hope to see more competition, because you're not necessarily aiming at retail, you're aiming at processing, at manufacturing," he said.

"Right now, Loblaws and Walmart are essentially bullying the supply chain. They're basically destroying a lot of companies we don't hear about because as consumers, we never have access to these products."

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He adds while high food prices are certainly part of the problem, the larger issue around food affordability that needs to be addressed is the increase in cost of living in Canada, as well as climate change.

"Shelter costs. Interest rates. Debt. All these things have actually made people show up at the grocery store with less money, not more. And that's been quite [a distress] for a lot of people because it happened so quickly."

Although food inflation has improved immensely around the world, especially when compared with last year, saysCharlebois,"we're always like a drought away from seeing prices go up."