Columnists
What’s on your plate?
A North American grocery retailer generated approximately 53.17 billion Canadian dollars in revenue in 2021. Most of us have groceryshopped there or at one of their other holdings or iterations. And most Canadian communities are host to one of their companies. And, here we are, blaming the Pandemic and the war in Ukraine on escalating food prices. But what do I know? I don’t have a degree in Food Insecurity or Break-the-Bank at the Grocery Store Economics. I’m a food consumer. I’m a grocery shopper. I have sticker shock.
So, before I continue this column about Extortion at the Grocery Store, let me say this, “Do not tell me a person could save a lot of money at the checkout if they didn’t buy so much junk, fast and/or processed food.” The people who suffer most at the hands of the GGEs—Greedy Grocery Executives— may have the resources to buy a three-pound bag of dried chickpeas, but do not have the time to soak the beans for 24 hours, cook them slowly over low heat and make a batch of falafel with them. Chances are, a lot of people don’t have the facility to store a ginormous bag of chickpeas and likely don’t have a freezer to hold scads of falafel balls. Nor are many consumers likely to have fresh cilantro, dill, parsley, roasted sesame seeds, cumin or coriander in their pantry—ingredients called for in falafel recipes. Nope, they don’t. Mostly, the biggest victims of GGEs are the underemployed, and the underpaid. The thing is, many of them work for corporations that pull in billions of dollars in revenue and those corporations then make sure their own employees are barely covering the basics. The same corporations who pay their executives bonuses that are incomprehensible to most persons. Nope, nope, nope. Many hardworking, underemployed, underpaid people just don’t have time to play with their food and now don’t have the money to pay for their food. Fresh fruit and vegetables are not on their shopping lists because it’s just not a good investment. Fresh fruit and vegetables, which have a short shelf life, are avoided because the underemployed and underpaid cannot afford to deal with food spoilage. (N.B. PELC is working to make fresh fruit and vegetables readily available to everyone. With big thanks to you, PELC.)
For those of you who think you know me, and most of you don’t, there was a time when making ends meet was a daily struggle for me and for LOML. We remember having just enough money for rent and hardly enough money to get to work, or to pay tuition or to put food on our table. Let’s just say we knew what an empty refrigerator looked like and we knew how fortunate we were to have family close by when we lived in Toronto. It was a great comfort to know a well-timed visit to our parents’ home would not only mean a free meal, but if we played our cards right, LEFTOVERS and maybe we’d get to do a load of laundry without paying at the laundromat. He and I often survived on hint-o-meat sandwiches during the week. We had many tea with toast and peanut butter dinners and could make a tomato last for days. Ain’t nothing like diaphanous slices of tomato on the cheapest white bread available for lunch. I’m not complaining and was not looking for a handout then, or now. We knew there would be a time when we’d be able to grocery shop without having a panic attack at the checkout. We knew it would get better. We knew we had support whenever we really needed it. We weren’t exactly “food insecure” or “underemployed”. We were students who worked. Many folks are not as fortunate. Eating once a day is normal for some. In this day, and age, we should be able to say that food insecurity and underemployment is a thing of the past. It isn’t.
In this day and age we shouldn’t be at the mercy of corporate greed and criminal extortion at the grocery store. A person should be able to buy, at the very least, the basics without leaving a huge gap in another area of their lives. Food banks, breakfast programmes and “soup” kitchens should be a thing of the past at this point in time. We know what causes those problems and we, as a community of Canadians, seem to have done nothing to resolve it. This year, 2022, the average Canadian family of four will spend at least one thousand dollars more for food. A food economist at University of Guelph suggested consumers who spend about 10 to 11 per cent of their income on food could choose cheaper options, or cut other parts of their household budget to cover the increased cost of food. But if a lower income household is already doing all of that, where do they go from that point? Where is the flexibility in their lives?
Statistics Canada stated the average household income in Ontario is about $52,000. The average household is, statistically, a family of four. If 10 per cent of that is for food, the math-magic leaves a lot of empty spots on the family plate. How many families of four, realistically, manage on one hundred dollars per week for food? Pass the oatmeal and hold the milk and brown sugar. Forget about what’s in season at the farm stand. The average household can’t afford to drive to a farm stand, pay the rent and put food on the table, too.
Here’s the GGE reality: Alain Bouchard, $7.9 million per year. Paver Binning, $7.8 million per year. Vincente Tries, $5.2 million per year. Michael McCain, $5.2 million per year. Galen Weston, $4.7 million per year. I’ll bet they don’t break into a cold sweat when the cashier turns to them and sweetly says, “How will you be paying for this?”
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