Loblaw Companies Ltd., Canada’s largest grocer, is freezing prices on no-name brand items until the end of January 2023 to help give Canadians some relief from inflation.
The price freeze will be applied to more than 1,500 no-name items sold in over 2,400 stores across Canada, such as Shopper’s Drug Mart, No Frills, Maxi, and Zehrs.
Galen Weston, CEO and executive chairman at Loblaw, said suppliers are raising prices, and “the truth is most are reasonable.”
“Maddeningly, much of this is out of our control,” Weston said, pointing out that prices have gone up for everything, including gas, rent, and mortgages.
He said no-name brands already offer savings of around 25 percent compared to regular brands on a range of things, including apples, potatoes, butter, eggs, cheese, rice, pasta, toilet paper, and paper towels.
Weston also suggested using PC Optimum, the rewards program that offers discounts on specific items and reward points. He said members are regularly saving 10 percent through the program.
Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University, called the move “a PR strategy.”
“A lot of Canadians are blaming grocers for what’s going on with food inflation,” he said, according to The Canadian Press.
Gary Sands, senior vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, said the move could inadvertently hurt smaller grocers.
‘Easy to Execute’
“In the grand scheme of things, Loblaw’s move was easy to execute. Negotiating with contract manufacturers which support the grocer’s brands is not that challenging. It just needed a plan,” Charlebois said.He said grocers in many Western economies offered price freezes or drops, but Canada lagged behind until Loblaw’s announcement.
