this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Judge approves $500M settlement in Loblaw, George Weston bread price-fixing case (ca.finance.yahoo.com)
submitted 3 days ago by RandAlThor to c/canada
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[–] skozzii 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Why do like 85% of the payouts go to Ontario and Quebec but not the rest of Canada? The rest of Canada might get some money back once Ontario and Quebec are happy, but it's unlikely? That's not cool. I've bought a ton of bread from Loblaws in those years, and all I got was a one time $20 payment.

Seems pretty unfair and not as it should be.

[–] Rentlar 29 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Customers who bought bread between January 2001 and December 2021 and did not previously take a gift card from Loblaw will eventually receive up to $25.

$25 would surely compensate for being overcharged for bread for 20 years.

[–] nbailey 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They should be made to support Canadian food banks with at-cost bread and shelf stable food until they pay off the fine. Gift cards are just insulting.

[–] lost_faith 7 points 2 days ago

The penalty should start with the profit made, then there needs to be a fine on top of that for half again what the profits were. Otherwise it is just the cost of doing business

[–] Someone 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Did some quick and rough math: assuming they had 2000 stores (tried to average out the years I had data for) and that they only overcharged by $1.50, they would've made $500 million by each store selling just 22 loaves per day. And that's not considering the fact they also sold their bread wholesale to restaurants (and I'm pretty sure other non-loblaws owned stores).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Wording is a little weird there. Thought you were saying that each of the 2000 stores was making $500m lol

[–] UnderFreyja 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Feels like when I first heard of this I wasn't a parent, and my first kid is 10 now...

[–] masterofn001 4 points 3 days ago

I am a member of another different class action suit against a certain provincial government.

Only a few months ago was it finalised and the deadline for submissions of claim has passed. Now they must review each claim and amount to be paid. Only after all reviews have been made will payments be issued. Which is likely to take another year.

The initial filing was in 2011.

They can take a while.

[–] RandAlThor 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Despite this, price of bread is still ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

Almost as though lackluster fines as penalty aren't effective at repairing the damage caused by corporate corruption, amirite? Better give them another slap on the wrist instead of breaking up their abusive corporate monopolies. /s We should look to Bell, and break up grocers working in collusion to artificially inflate prices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

[–] Sturgist 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Legit. I grew up in Vancouver. When I moved to London (UK) to be with my wife I was blown away by how cheap food was. Prices are rising, inflation, COVID, Brexit, etc. still, I pay less than £2 for 2 pints(bit over a litre) of milk.
A standard shop for 2 weeks is usually around £80-100, but we get easily double what I'd get at a grocery for $80-100 PRE covid.

[–] gramie 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So you are paying CAD$3.73 for 1 l of milk. Meanwhile, I am paying less than twice that for 4 l of milk in Ontario. You aren't making a very good case for the UK being cheaper.

It's also affected by salaries. The UK minimum wage is about $22 per hour, compared to about 17 in Canada. On the other hand, a web developer like me earns an average of about CAD$68,000 in the UK, versus around $80,000 in Canada.

The big question is the cost of housing, but I don't know what it is in the UK.

[–] Sturgist 1 points 3 days ago

I got into the weeds a bit more in this comment.

Before I moved from Vancouver I was working piece work, so paid by the square foot of stone installed(I'm a stone mason). I was making about the equivalent of $40/hr. With cost of food, cell, vehicle insurance, fuel, etc. I had to live with 3 other people, my rent was still about $1000/month, $1500+ with bills. For a room.

[–] DicJacobus 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Whats it like now?

I have no point of reference because the only time I was there was for 2 weeks in 2010, and the only groceries I ever did was a single run to Sainsburies and a visit to Tesco every other day for 1-2 things

that might as well have been a lifetime ago

[–] Someone 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't mean to discredit the point you were trying to make, but isn't £80-100 worth almost double $80-100? A 1L carton at my local store is about $3 or £1.60 (equivalent of £1.80 for 2 pints). Seems pretty similar.

[–] Sturgist 1 points 3 days ago

That wasn't really a great example without context. When I moved to London 2 pints of milk was 60p, 500g of really good cheese was £1.50 maybe. Rent on the last 2 bed my wife and I rented in London was £1100. The last 2 bed I rented in greater Vancouver, so 2017ish, was $3000.

My monthly car insurance before I moved in November 2020, even with exchange rate, is ⅔ of my ANNUAL cost here. My cell plan is £24pcm and I get 500gb of data, plus global roaming. 1kg of chicken breast that I just picked up today for dinner was £2 and change.

[–] toastmeister 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Good thing we had progressives in power in 2018 when this came to light, and we didnt just flood them with cheap labor instead of punishing them.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

500M isn't shit for the Westons. Fuck Loblaws.

[–] Showroom7561 9 points 3 days ago

in hopes of making amends with customers who paid about $1.50 more per loaf of bread.

Infuriating.

If I were to do some quick math:

20 years of this fraud = 1040 weeks.

My family used to buy 2–3 loaves of bread per week from their stores, so low-balling it would be around 2000 loaves.

At $1.50, they owe me well over $3000. And that doesn't include interest over 20 years, which you better believe they'd charge consumers if money was owed to them.

[–] nik282000 6 points 3 days ago

Nothing you can do to a billionaire is a crime in comparison to the "business" that makes them wealthy.

I have never seen anyone abuse a self checkout machine. They are 100% infallible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

All going back to the consumer that was defrauded, right?

Right, motherfucker?!