'They don’t listen to us': Looming Loblaws boycott aims to bring food prices down

As high food prices continue to pack a punch in people’s wallets, there is a call to boycott Loblaws owned stores for the entire month of May.

A post on Reddit is urging Canadians to not buy from any Lowbaw affiliated companies with a goal to get grocery stores to lower prices by 15 per cent and do away with member-only pricing policies.

Grocery shoppers in Windsor, Ont. say they want to see food prices reduced, but are mixed on the potential effectiveness a month long boycott may have.

“Hopefully, that'll be something that I'm hoping for, that's for sure,” said Windsor mom Kelsey Holland.

“It's getting ridiculous to even just be able to live,” Holland exclaimed.

“They're (food prices) going up every week. A lot of stuff I used to buy, I just don't buy anymore,” Windsor resident Chuck Fader said.

Fader said he doubted an extended boycott would be enough to bring prices down, “I don't know if it would. I think it's a lot higher up than that. It's not these grocers. It's the people that sit above them.”

“I think this is just the norm now,” he added.

Shopper Noreen Campbell said it’s awful how expensive groceries have become and is pessimistic about costs coming lower.

“They don't listen to us,” Campbell said. “They're way above us. I just can't see the prices coming down.”

“I think the government has to do something about it,” she continued. “I don't know how people are feeding their children or themselves. I mean, I got a small bag today, that's all I can afford.”

Meantime, Canadian food analyst Sylvain Charlebois with Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab is also skeptical about a boycott yielding desired results.

“I think Canadians have every right to be upset,” Charlebois told CTV News.

“People are frustrated. People don’t feel in control at all and obviously they aim at one person, one company they know very well,” Charlebois said. “Which is interesting because when you actually look at margins, when you look at how grocers are performing, actually Loblaws doesn't necessarily have the highest gross margins.”

He continued “Other retailers are doing much better and so that's why I think right now there's some irrational behavior going on out there just basically targeting this one person or this one company, unjustifiably in my view.”

Charlebois said the upcoming boycott was the latest of several over the last four years, believing the protest could backfire, “This is not new. This [boycott] in particular is making a lot more noises but at the end of the day, people will go back to the grocery store and they'll see that things are not as difficult as they were just 12 months ago.”

Charlebois said, “Sometimes boycotts do work, but in this case, it can't. In fact, it could backfire against the people, the very people who are trying to make this boycott successful. You would basically force other grocers to raise prices. If you eliminate one option off the market. That's trouble for everyone.”

Charlebois noted that Michigan is also putting pressure on Windsor based grocers to remain competitive, saying there are deals to be had stateside on things like poultry, eggs, and dairy, but suggests it remains in everyone’s interest to shop around at various stores, including independent grocers.

“It's tough to mobilize people beyond Reddit, beyond social media. Social media will basically get people to say anything and everything and it's therapeutic and people want to release their anger and that's important. But at the end of the day, you have to feed yourself. You have to feed your family and so you'll go towards the best deal and we actually did survey Canadians about three weeks ago, asking Canadians which grocer do you see as the best grocer to offer deals and discounts and the number one choice was Loblaw,” said Charlebois.

CTV News has reached out to Loblaw and boycott organizers for comment.