Report: more competition in grocery stores is needed in Canada

[storewanderer]

No Kosher hot dogs/meat products in Canada?

I think there are some very tightly sourced Kosher products in Canada. I think the labeling rule may be more strict there.

[ClownLoach]

From what I've heard, Canadian chains have higher quality products than US chains (even Walmart up there is probably higher quality than the typical Kroger or Albertsons down here, dare I say it).

Loblaw has the best stores up there in a variety of formats from price impact warehouse to premium, but I wouldn't say that quality is better by any stretch of the imagination. It's all over the place. Much of what appears to be spectacular bread at Loblaw's top tier store line Provigo is all brown and serve for example - but they sure display it well. Produce in all supermarkets is just okay - but major public markets sell superior produce, meats and baked goods such as Marche Atwater or Marche Jean-Talon in Montréal. I've seen IGA stores that would turn your stomach with product that Walmart and the various dollar store chains would reject. Service levels at grocery stores are less than what we are used to in the US, self checkouts have been the norm for years. Seems to be much more security in stores, one way turnstiles to get in and out, carts that don't go past the curb and so on. Inconveniences that most American stores eliminated decades ago. Oddly enough they were doing the acrylic partition barriers at checkout stands long before COVID - I wonder if that is where the idea came from?

I do know that there are less artificial flavors, corn syrups and such in Canadian food. Somehow I can go up there and eat practically unlimited amounts of horrible food such as Poutine and yet I feel great the entire time I'm there and will lose weight over my vacation. But there are foods that seem very low quality especially their fast food chains, and as discussed the hot dogs which were all pretty vile. I am not sure exactly why this happens to me. Clearly there is something in heavily processed American foods that isn't in the Canadian food and as such I feel much healthier after just a few days of eating there.

[storewanderer]

From what I've heard, Canadian chains have higher quality products than US chains (even Walmart up there is probably higher quality than the typical Kroger or Albertsons down here, dare I say it).

Loblaw has the best stores up there in a variety of formats from price impact warehouse to premium, but I wouldn't say that quality is better by any stretch of the imagination. It's all over the place. Much of what appears to be spectacular bread at Loblaw's top tier store line Provigo is all brown and serve for example - but they sure display it well. Produce in all supermarkets is just okay - but major public markets sell superior produce, meats and baked goods such as Marche Atwater or Marche Jean-Talon in Montréal. I've seen IGA stores that would turn your stomach with product that Walmart and the various dollar store chains would reject. Service levels at grocery stores are less than what we are used to in the US, self checkouts have been the norm for years. Seems to be much more security in stores, one way turnstiles to get in and out, carts that don't go past the curb and so on. Inconveniences that most American stores eliminated decades ago. Oddly enough they were doing the acrylic partition barriers at checkout stands long before COVID - I wonder if that is where the idea came from?

I do know that there are less artificial flavors, corn syrups and such in Canadian food. Somehow I can go up there and eat practically unlimited amounts of horrible food such as Poutine and yet I feel great the entire time I'm there and will lose weight over my vacation. But there are foods that seem very low quality especially their fast food chains, and as discussed the hot dogs which were all pretty vile. I am not sure exactly why this happens to me. Clearly there is something in heavily processed American foods that isn't in the Canadian food and as such I feel much healthier after just a few days of eating there.

Portion sizes in Canada tend to be a bit smaller and I think the lack of junk filler ingredients really makes a difference too.

We need to also remember Canada was the most profitable operating unit for Safeway. There was a reason for that- Safeway ran the Canada operation basically like the US one but with entirely different products due to the labeling laws and that also forced them to do more local sourcing and more merchandising decisions were made at a regional level. Their produce and meat was noticeably better than the other chains in Canada. Sobeys really screwed that up. The Safeway Canada bakery program had 5x the variety of the US program (which was already a larger bakery mix than a lot of competitors), and the Safeway Canada deli looked very similar to the US Safeway which meant a lot more ready to eat foods, custom sandwiches, more salads, more hot food, etc. than most other Canadian chains.

[norcalriteaidclerk]

We also mustn't forget the short-lived Target Canada experiment(when they acquired the bulk of Zellers)which IMHO wasn't given enough time to succeed mainly because it was seen by the still-current CEO as a pet project of his predecessor who was brought down by the infamous data breach some years back.

[buckguy]

From what I've heard, Canadian chains have higher quality products than US chains (even Walmart up there is probably higher quality than the typical Kroger or Albertsons down here, dare I say it).

Loblaw has the best stores up there in a variety of formats from price impact warehouse to premium, but I wouldn't say that quality is better by any stretch of the imagination. It's all over the place. Much of what appears to be spectacular bread at Loblaw's top tier store line Provigo is all brown and serve for example - but they sure display it well. Produce in all supermarkets is just okay - but major public markets sell superior produce, meats and baked goods such as Marche Atwater or Marche Jean-Talon in Montréal. I've seen IGA stores that would turn your stomach with product that Walmart and the various dollar store chains would reject. Service levels at grocery stores are less than what we are used to in the US, self checkouts have been the norm for years. Seems to be much more security in stores, one way turnstiles to get in and out, carts that don't go past the curb and so on. Inconveniences that most American stores eliminated decades ago. Oddly enough they were doing the acrylic partition barriers at checkout stands long before COVID - I wonder if that is where the idea came from?

I do know that there are less artificial flavors, corn syrups and such in Canadian food. Somehow I can go up there and eat practically unlimited amounts of horrible food such as Poutine and yet I feel great the entire time I'm there and will lose weight over my vacation. But there are foods that seem very low quality especially their fast food chains, and as discussed the hot dogs which were all pretty vile. I am not sure exactly why this happens to me. Clearly there is something in heavily processed American foods that isn't in the Canadian food and as such I feel much healthier after just a few days of eating there.

Portion sizes in Canada tend to be a bit smaller and I think the lack of junk filler ingredients really makes a difference too.

We need to also remember Canada was the most profitable operating unit for Safeway. There was a reason for that- Safeway ran the Canada operation basically like the US one but with entirely different products due to the labeling laws and that also forced them to do more local sourcing and more merchandising decisions were made at a regional level. Their produce and meat was noticeably better than the other chains in Canada. Sobeys really screwed that up. The Safeway Canada bakery program had 5x the variety of the US program (which was already a larger bakery mix than a lot of competitors), and the Safeway Canada deli looked very similar to the US Safeway which meant a lot more ready to eat foods, custom sandwiches, more salads, more hot food, etc. than most other Canadian chains.

A&P also did well there. They sold the stores because they needed to raise cash.

The problems for stimulating competition include super markets being a mature bsuiness with high bars to entry. Niche formats like Aldi, Trader Joe's, and Save-Alot might do ok, esp, in the more densely populated areas. The existence of viable fresh marketsmight make it more difficult for a EWhole Foods type chain, along with the smaller population base outside of a few places like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

[storewanderer]

We also mustn't forget the short-lived Target Canada experiment(when they acquired the bulk of Zellers)which IMHO wasn't given enough time to succeed mainly because it was seen by the still-current CEO as a pet project of his predecessor who was brought down by the infamous data breach some years back.

Target in Canada had the wrong product mix in its stores and also had the wrong physical stores. Many of the stores were old Woolco or Kmart Stores and felt like it (old, outdated). They were also smaller and in C and D type locations. They had a poor/limited mix of grocery/consumable items and as I recall were being supplied by Loblaws or some other third party. The entire store had a poor/limited mix of products. It was nothing like a US Target. It felt like it had rejected bits and pieces from a US Target.

Target's better approach would have been to organically expand in Canada with large stores similar to the US. Open a store or two in each major metro of Canada and make it as similar to a US Target as possible on general merchandise. On food if they needed to use a third party they needed to do a much better job.

The irony is after Canada, the approach Target took in the US where they started opening up all these weird random sized stores, was actually a lot like what they were trying to operate in Canada...

[storewanderer]

A&P also did well there. They sold the stores because they needed to raise cash.

The problems for stimulating competition include super markets being a mature bsuiness with high bars to entry. Niche formats like Aldi, Trader Joe's, and Save-Alot might do ok, esp, in the more densely populated areas. The existence of viable fresh marketsmight make it more difficult for a EWhole Foods type chain, along with the smaller population base outside of a few places like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Whole Foods is already there in Canada. From what I can see they do pretty well with the locations they have, but expansion potential is somewhat questionable.

The biggest issue in Canada is the product labeling laws. Most US retailer private labels do not meet compliance with the Canada labeling laws. Some bigger CPGs like P&G have US labels on most items that are compliant with Canada labeling laws. It is not impossible to make it happen but re-labeling an entire private label line is a task.

So it is not so easy that private label heavy Trader Joe's or Aldi could up and say we are going to open a store in Canada and supply it from the US. Every label would need to be redesigned first, or they'd have to source separately labeled items for Canada, or put supplemental labels on the items in Canada to be compliant with Canada's labeling laws.

[jamcool]

Meaning they have to be labeled in both English and French?

[storewanderer]

Meaning they have to be labeled in both English and French?

Yes, but the other difference is on foods, there are some differences in what an ingredient is called in both places. If a company has clean label food (like Whole Foods, and probably Trader Joe's too) this may not be a huge issue, as the nutrition labels and unit of measurement can easily be modified to work in both countries on most items if the labels are clean. But for stores selling food full of junk ingredients, notably high fructose corn syrup in the US which is known as glucose fructose in Canada, this is an issue and labels do need to be changed. So basically food items in Canada cannot just be thrown up there with their US labels except for clean label items.

Also there is some French language requirement.

Look at any P&G product in a US Grocery Store. Those products are fully compliant from a labeling standpoint.

[SamSpade]

Meaning they have to be labeled in both English and French?

Also there is some French language requirement.

Look at any P&G product in a US Grocery Store. Those products are fully compliant from a labeling standpoint.

French and English must be the same size font and mirror each other in Canadian packaging requirements. If one shops somewhere like Costco, you will see this a lot on non-food items, for example. Labeling that is NAFTA (... er whatever the new one that updated that is acronymed) compliant in English, French, and Spanish all at the same size so it can be sold in USA/Canada/Mexico.

Similarly, IKEA has very good international labeling requirements and as far as I know sells packaged food in both the USA and Canada. Again, to be EU compliant probably puts them above and beyond any North American market requirement (though Mexico does use those big stop signs for 'excess calories' 'excess sugar' 'excess fat.')