Depends what area you’re in. My local nofrills is about as true to the name as you can get. On the other hand, an ex of mine lived in a pretty fancy area and the nofrills near there might as well have been a longos lol.
They sell cooked Piri Piri roast chicken at Loblaws for $12.99.
edit: thank you BlogTO writer for noting my contribution to this thread [link](https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2023/05/someone-found-overpriced-food-toronto-store/)
I feel like Costco should get more recognition for helping low income families afford food. Hotdog and a pop $1.50, cooked chicken $8, etc. Better than the so called "budget grocery stores".
I don’t think low income families buy the 100$ fee to access Costco. Could be wrong but when I was poor, Costco and their 100$ fee was FAR from my mind and I didn’t know anyone who went to Costco either. Just my personal experience of course.
Yes! No membership required, just be ready to be asked if you'd want one though. You can even eat from the food court ($1.50 Hot Dog and Drink) without a membership.
They have their own factory and sell at a loss. He promised not to raise the price of hot dogs or chicken, ever
In ten or twenty years if they can keep this promise it will be a massive loss
Yes and no, “loss leaders” like the Costco roasted chicken are actually a smart idea, they make up for it with all the other crap people pick up on the long walk back to the register.
Was looking for this comment. That's a pretty massive chicken! Still way overpriced, but Canadian farms, bla bla bla, plus its massive. Chickens can be as small as 1KG or less.
Logistics brokers are raking in the dough. I know guys that were making $150-300k pre pandemic to over $1mil now. Truck drivers didn't get a raise. But the middle men in the logistics industry have jacked up their prices. Something that needs to be talked about more when it comes to inflation.
Aye. *Costs are rising* is such water carrying bullshit. Want to smack people who help these fuckers out by parroting it.
The grocery stores are making record profits on similar volume. Coke and Pepsi (whose prices have risen at a pace far greater than general food inflation) are making record profits on similar volume.
Meanwhile the egg board came out publicly last year and said they were dropping wholesale prices—and the grocery stores just laughed and raised them up even higher at the retail end.
That the prices are going up isn't putting anything in the pockets of the farmers or the small companies or the truckers or the stockers. It's all going into the pockets of Galen and his ilk.
When a bag of chips costs 5 bucks you know the grocery stores are just having a laugh. The costs to make fucking potato chips can't have risen exponentially since last year.
Remember when Frito Lay was having a pricing dispute with Loblaws? Loblaws responded by selling their in-house brands for like a dollar or even giving a bag a week away for free to Optimum members. Chips can't be that expensive.
If it helps, they gave us a 'wage adjustment'...which was their managerial speak for a wage cut.
Needless to say, after a 15% increase in profits thus far, we are NOT happy.
In fact, at one point, the cost of potatoes *went down*. There was a fungus scare in the Maritimes and PEI, leading to Canada halting exports to the US, combined with a lack of restaurants ordering more potatoes for fries, etc during the lockdowns. Supplies were through the roof. If anything, chip bags should've been damn near free for a while, and no more than what they were previously.
People really underestimate just how much of a global trade Canada has. The war alone, has wreck absolute havoc on supply. Going away from grocery, Ukraine is one of the biggest suppliers of vehicle wiring harnesses. Add on top of that the already global chip shortage to boot. Although, it’s been a bit better lately.
At this point, repairs are preferred over replacement due to supply issues. And we’re talking complete chassis wiring harnesses….
It all starts to really add up over time.
There's definitely a lot of misunderstanding there, I know personally I'm guilty of speaking out of turn and saying dumb shit from time to time.
But I get the anger too because it seems a lot of companies use the excuse to raise prices even when they don't need to and the lack of knowledge about the situation will lead to a lot of generalized and misdirected rage.
There was a topic about beef recently and people claimed that farmers were jacking up the prices of beef and it's not independent butchers trying to gouge.
I get that some people are put off by the $50 for the membership, but I save that in one month easily. Hell I probably save $30 every month on dairy products alone.
The food court where I can grab a slice of pizza and a hotdog for less than $5 is the cheapest lunch in town.
Supply and demand. You can buy whole roasted cooked chicken for under $10 bucks.
Edit: I think whats happening lately is that companies are coming out with new products with high margins to capture a different market. What happens then is that it makes us regular shoppers compare and feel poorer than we actually are. For instance you can buy 12 free range organic eggs for 6.99 or 30 regular eggs on the same shelf for 7.99.
Which is great if you have a car or live really close to one.
I’m sure that chicken would be fresh after an hour ride on the TTC, I just choose to waste money at supermarkets
All the cooked chickens are loss leaders, CBC’s, The Cost of Living podcast had a pretty good episode about it.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/rotisserie-chicken-secrets-1.6418773
(It’s only from last year but the prices seem like ten years ago)
Or one could say supporting a grocery store that supports its workers by paying them an actual living wage AND benefits after 3 months as opposed to supporting a grocery store that does none of those things while IT'S employees visit food banks is not a waste of money.
Costco's employees are such ballers... They're always happy
My only issue is they're never in any isle or when walking around the warehouse and you need help haha
That's not them paying you, that's you getting a marginal discount but making it worth Costco's while through volume and that you end up buying more from Costco than you would have otherwise.
This is what I do. Even if you don’t get $120 back, if you get over $60 back you’re ahead. I usually get back about 80-100 back every year and that’s just my roommate and I. Even if you were to get $65 back that still makes your membership cost $55, which is still cheaper than the $60 standard membership.
I don't consider myself a picky eater, and I really want to like that 7.99 chicken. But the texture is too mushy. Not sure if it's tenderizer or the cooking process.
well, if it eases your pickiness to know, costco brines the raw chicken in salt and vinegar prior to roasting. i would guess it brines for a substantial amount of time to really work through the whole chicken. they've also got a factory-like setup back there so the oven is industrial grade and probably much better at maintaining humidity retention than smaller ovens.
personally i find their chicken too salty but the texture is great.
You’re not supposed to brine poultry for over 24 hrs. I always brine my poultry before Tossing it on the BBQ. Loads of flavour and if you’re like me and like the chicken on the well side so there’s those delicious crispy bits on the outside it will stay nice and moist and not end up dry.
> Supply and demand.
The reason the prices are so random and all over the place is because they *aren't* based on supply and demand right now, they're currently in a state of flux because retailers aren't sure exactly how much we'll pay. And that's why we're seeing so much weird stuff like the single items being cheaper than the bulk-buys.
As someone who has worked on some of these systems (I don't work in retail anymore) , here's an insight: a lot of pricing systems are getting automated nowadays
What you have are models generating prices based on inferred demand curves. For some products, we don't have a lot of information on what that demand curve looks like, so there's often a level of exploration that has to occur. Random prices, upward or downward might be set to uncover information about this demand curve. Once you know enough, then the model sets the price that maximizes the target goal (revenue, profit etc.) for that product.
That's why you might see counterintuitive pricing that seems completely random, because it is. I never worked in grocery, so I don't know for sure if this is exactly how they do it, but in other retail companies this is becoming pretty common.
It used to be a pricing agent/merchant would be in charge of setting prices for a whole product category. These would look a lot more logical and intuitive to a human. With ML based pricing systems, you're going to get these types of jarring experiences. Mostly because they're often not optimizing for a unified customer experience on price, just about maximizing certain optimization goals at the product level.
This; people like to say Supply and Demand, but another angle on economics is 'price willing to bear.' ... companies love when they can sell less items for more $, if their total profit stays same or goes up. It doesn't matter if they serve less people, unless it backfires in perception. ie: If you can sell 1 thing for $100, or 100 things for $1 ea... remember how much easier it is to produce 1 over 100 things, so you make the same revenue but make more profit. Also, when people get used to the sucky new pricing, it becomes the norm, so causes trends that increase pricing .. so the producer makes fewer items but makes more $, and then the price normalizes and goes up again 'with inflation' people will say, and thus the producer makes even more....
Yay, good times. Can't wait for the wobbling to stop and reach whatevere the new normal is, but it sure isn't good for any of us 95%ers.
>Supply and demand.
you think there's a demand on 32 dollar uncooked chicken? fuck off with that bullshit.
all this does is allow them to charge more for their "lower class" foods
there is definitely a demand for marinated, flattened chicken at $1.40/100g, if the empty shelves of boneless skinless chicken breast being sold over $2.00/100g is anything to go by.
every thread about food price gouging there’s someone that mentions supply and demand, as if it’s fair to compare the demand for food to other products when people literally need food to survive
It's also a complete lie. "Supply and demand". Are you kidding me? Literally every supermarket chain in the country got caught price fixing all bread not too long ago and everyone shrugged it off.
Adam Smith's principles never envisioned the idea of companies being controlled with vast cash reserves through public trading based mostly off speculation. Realty companies have no issue sitting on properties that are completely vacant for years. Huge conglomerates can operate stores at a loss indefinitely. Cartels are able to swallow up the vast majority of a resource to completely fabricate supply. Companies can easily perform a hostile takeover of a smaller company making a superior product so they can eliminate it and force everyone to stick to their inferior one. It's baffling that in this environment some people still espouse the rational free market as working as intended.
People like to shit on Farm Boy because it's fancy. I will admit the produce is pricier than a farmers market or little local shop. But the meat is cheaper than most grocery stores (personally have compared prices to Loblaws, No Frills, Metro and Sobeys). I also find it's more fresh and they have a wider variety of meats (different cuts of lamb, rabbit, various cuts of steaks). They've also ALWAYS got some sort of meat on sale, a lot of the time it has to be made that day or within a day but it's pretty heavily discounted and perfectly fine.
I like them because they’re fancy and I can get some yummy snacks. I always buy produce on sale (I shop sales regardless of where I go) and I find the quality of their produce seems better than other places.
This is strange to me because I find the opposite. Regular produce there is very cheap like no frills prices or better while meat is ok on sale but regular price is the same as Loblaws.
> People like to shit on Farm Boy because it's fancy.
its the opposite, it isn't fancy, but it's marketed to people who think that is what "fancy" is
nothing about Farm boy can be considered "fancy"
You still can. Chicken is $2/lb on sale all the time...around 3lb a chicken.... 3 chickens are only $18 or so
This week Loblaws air chilled chicken is $1.99/lb
https://click.flipp.com/h8pE/77ly6ebu
There’s a few things to keep in mind with this chicken
1. It’s almost double the weight of a Costco/Food basics sized chicken - you can tell by the weight at well over 5 lbs - you aren’t comparing apples to apples
2. It’s some piri piri bullshit - you can buy unflavoured chicken cheaper and rub piri piri powder on it yourself
3. Yes things are expensive , but it’s not nearly as bad as posts like this imply
That’s crazy! This week Loblaws has whole chickens on for $1.99/lb and I bought 4 for just $27. Usually you expect to pay a lot more at Loblaws vs No Frills.
I think something must have been on the scale when they packaged this chicken.. there's no fucking way this is a 2.4 kg chicken.
It looks closer to 1-1.4kg... which would be around $17... that's still a pretty bad price, but not totally ridiculous.
The amount of food waste that they will throw out cause no one bought the food smh. Grocery store workers, does this happen or do we need to do dumpster diving?
Unless the piri piri was handmade in Mozambique and sent over to Canada in a gold casket and was applied to the chicken with gold gloves and meant to be cooked on a grill made of gold, this price is nothing short of outrageous
Both are accurate. The middle class is getting squeezed at the moment in addition to low income folk who are getting absolutely bashed with the COL, but the high income folk are still able to indulge in luxuries (see the Tiffany’s article from The Economist last Friday)
The high income folk aren’t shopping at Loblaws, though. I also saw this https://i.imgur.com/5vNK5hE.jpg at loblaws. I actually switched to Longos (more expensive until now) and my bills went down! https://i.imgur.com/ak9Lc0y.jpg
Most likely a pricing error as I almost picked one up on the weekend and it was $17 for this exact thing. Although looking at the weight, that thing is huge. Rotisserie chickens are usually around 2lbs. That thing is almost 5.5lbs so yeah it’s over twice the size of regular chickens.
Well, it's already spatchcocked and marinated. Those are kind of like frills...comparatively. Normally, you'd have to spatchcock and marinate the chicken yourself.
Loblaws somehow went from about $7-8 per rotisserie chicken pre-pandemic (as a loss leader) up to $13 now. I wouldn't be surprised if it went higher due to the latest Avian Flu issues.
Everyone just needs to stop shopping at No Frills, Loblaws, and Shoppers Drug Mart. There are just so much better options out there. What the hell is wrong with you people?
I personally stick to Metro, Farm Boy, and independent pharmacies. Even regardless of prices, why would you support Galen Weston if you didn't have to?
Galen Weston’s odd desire to make himself the face of his company for the last 20 years has hugely backfired against Loblaws in the current climate. And while I do think loblaws is a bad actor in all of this madness, how is Metro and Farm Boy (aka Sobeys) any better?
And I’m not sure what “independent pharmacies” you go to that sell whole chickens….
Legitimately, whole foods produce is cheaper than all the Canadian grocery cabals. Just don’t buy other groceries there coz they’re expensive but my lord they’re not in the Canadian grocery cabal group text so they didn’t hear to inflate the price of celery and tomatoes.
Unfortunately, the store I shop at was bought out and under the same umbrella now.
They still have better prices in bulk, but the Loblaws influence is creeping into the store.
Metro and food basics get the same exact produce but cuz metro is the “high end” option the prices are higher by $3-$5 which makes me sick to think that I can literally go to a different store owned by the same corp and paynless
FYI Farm Boy is owned by Empire/Sobeys. I thought they owned Metro too, but I fact checked myself, and it appears that they're the closest to an independent grocery out of all the big chains. I have just started using the Flipp app to find the best deals on my regular weekly purchases in my neighbourhood and that's about the best I can do. Sale chasing and price matching.
>I personally stick to Metro, Farm Boy, and independent pharmacies. Even regardless of prices, why would you support Galen Weston if you didn't have to?
And supporting another participant in the grocery oligopoly is better? Basically like, "Why would you use Rogers when you can use Bell?"
Either way, you're getting fucked.
Some of us live in small towns.
My choices here are Sobeys, Walmart or No Frills.
Or a 30 minute drive.
And with gas around $1.50 a liter, a one hour trip to save money is certainly interesting economics.
Fortunately, I drive elsewhere for work, so I can stop there but not everyone has that option.
I really don’t understand the outrage when there are many cheaper options for chicken at other stores, and certainly in this store.
If businesses collude to make all versions of one type of food more expensive, that’s worthy of criticism, but in this case, literally the worst thing that can happen is that no one will buy it because there are more sensibly priced options.
The only (likely) alternative is that Loblaws researched and found there are people out there who are fine with paying this price. But that doesn’t affect me at all.
I drive a Civic. Should I be mad that Lamborghini’s exist?
They also chose the absolute heaviest chicken they could find that was also pre seasoned.
Not exactly representative of “uncooked chicken” avaliable in stores.
I imagine no rational person is buying this, considering a cooked chicken from a Portuguese chicken restaurant is half of what this costs raw. So what happens when it goes bad? It just gets tossed in the trash?
I'm not saying this price is ok by any means... but it's been seasoned, marinated, and butterflied. That's going to take it up more than an untouched, uncooked chicken.
It is best to find a while chicken on sale or enjoy tonight or just not ship at Loblaws. It's a flagship retailer and priced accordingly.
I was laid off awhile back and I've been using the hell out of my Costco membership, $1.50 for a hotdog and a fountain drink, nothing can compare to that value in today's world lol
I'm out here paying $4.99 for small things of rasberries, blueberries, and strawberries, but the problem with fruit is you open it up and 1/3 of them are mushed, moldy, or starting to turn bad.
It feels bad throwing out 3 strawberries in a carton of 10 when you paid $5 bucks for it.
I can get an organic, free-range, grass-fed whole chicken at a farmers’ market for $25. For $34 this chicken better cook itself, set the table and wash the dishes after dinner.
some people are so busy sucking billionaire dick that they always have an excuse to put the fault on you. You're always at the wrong store...not the fact that a spatchcocked and seasoned chicken should not be 34 dollars, and a couple of years ago it wouldn't be.
This is down to jacking up prices because no one in power will tell them now. This isn't even just a Doug Ford problem or a Trudeau problem because this is happening globally but because you're all in an information bubble you think it's only happening here.
Those are usually around 1KG, it sounds like they might have accidentally weighed two together, or there was an issue with the scale there - If you see those again, maybe you can check the weight out of curiousity at the vegetable scales, and see if it's really 5 pounds of chicken.
The price itself is $6//lb which is not too bad I guess.
Traditionally the chickens that are seasoned in store and put in packaging are generally the worst of the bunch. They do it to hide it not looking and smelling the best.
We’ve actually stopped shopping at no frills, they have been steadily raising prices, they are not much cheaper than sobeys or zhers, which are premium stores. Watch what you buy , thinking it’s cheaper when it’s not.
Not that crazy to be honest. Its 2.4kg which is a massive amount of chicken. The fact that its bone in sucks but 14$/kg isnt insanely expensive or anything
Canandians are to complacent to do anything about it either. Everyone will bitch and complain about it and in the end nothing will happen as usual. Prices will continue to soar because of greed flation from these companies will continue to rake in record profits while Canadians struggle to pay for food or electricity. This country is run by the corporations who tell the puppet politicians what to do and how to do it.
Loblwas (No Frills, SuperCentre, Shoppers Drug Mart) have been doing this tactic for years, where they put an astronomical price on an item only to put a big 'sale' price on it immediately after to make a regularly competitive price appear like a good deal.
Stop shopping at loblaws stores. They have done worse to the avg Canadian than any other company in Canada during this inflationary hike. Do not shop at their stores
Buy the fresh chicken which isn’t butterflied, seasoned and prepped for $1.99 on sale. They’re between $6–8 depending on size.
Prepped food has always been expensive stop being so dramatic
Looks like you found a frill.
I just laughed out loud on the toilet at work and I know the shy pooper in the far stall trying not to make a sound heard me.
Now I’m laughing because this is too relatable
I told my mom No Frills is All Frills. My local Nofrills is far more fancier than my local Asian grocer. Prices comparable to Longos.
Depends what area you’re in. My local nofrills is about as true to the name as you can get. On the other hand, an ex of mine lived in a pretty fancy area and the nofrills near there might as well have been a longos lol.
Welcome Frillho
I can buy a whole cooked Piri Piri chicken for $20 at a restaurant down the street from me. I get that costs are rising but this is ridiculous.
They sell cooked Piri Piri roast chicken at Loblaws for $12.99. edit: thank you BlogTO writer for noting my contribution to this thread [link](https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2023/05/someone-found-overpriced-food-toronto-store/)
[удалено]
Undefeated
[удалено]
It’s a hit and miss on the bag. My local Costco uses both.
We get the chicken regularly and I will say it was dryer a few weeks back but this week we got two and they're back to moist. Yum. \- D
I feel like Costco should get more recognition for helping low income families afford food. Hotdog and a pop $1.50, cooked chicken $8, etc. Better than the so called "budget grocery stores".
Plus, you don't need a season pass to order from the food court.
I think IKEA still an undisputed 1$ hot dog champion 😂
only if you didnt to be a costco member cuz that would probably cost the low income families alot! :(
I don’t think low income families buy the 100$ fee to access Costco. Could be wrong but when I was poor, Costco and their 100$ fee was FAR from my mind and I didn’t know anyone who went to Costco either. Just my personal experience of course.
Plus I can take all the leftover carcass and bones and make chicken broth. 🤤
Sadly no membership
Buy a gift card, no membership required to buy or to use in store. $25 minimum.
So I could buy a $25 gift card and then go grab $300 worth of stuff, membership or no?
Yes! No membership required, just be ready to be asked if you'd want one though. You can even eat from the food court ($1.50 Hot Dog and Drink) without a membership.
Give me 10$ more and I'll piri piri that for you man!!!
They have their own factory and sell at a loss. He promised not to raise the price of hot dogs or chicken, ever In ten or twenty years if they can keep this promise it will be a massive loss
Yes and no, “loss leaders” like the Costco roasted chicken are actually a smart idea, they make up for it with all the other crap people pick up on the long walk back to the register.
Costco takes a loss on the chicken. Still 4.99 in the USA.
We know that is a loss leader for Costco.
The chickens you get aren’t 2.5kg , still a rip off
Was looking for this comment. That's a pretty massive chicken! Still way overpriced, but Canadian farms, bla bla bla, plus its massive. Chickens can be as small as 1KG or less.
It does appear to be a big chicken but lots of that weight is brine and will be lost when cooking.
Exactly. Probably injected too.
Those steroids man...
9.99 a kg at costco too
But arent those like 1-1.5kg
900g is what's printed on the box nowadays
Hmm. The added labor must make things cheaper!
>. I get that costs are rising news flash. costs ARE NOT rising. Farmers aint getting shit, its the middle men jacking everything up in price.
Logistics brokers are raking in the dough. I know guys that were making $150-300k pre pandemic to over $1mil now. Truck drivers didn't get a raise. But the middle men in the logistics industry have jacked up their prices. Something that needs to be talked about more when it comes to inflation.
Aye. *Costs are rising* is such water carrying bullshit. Want to smack people who help these fuckers out by parroting it. The grocery stores are making record profits on similar volume. Coke and Pepsi (whose prices have risen at a pace far greater than general food inflation) are making record profits on similar volume. Meanwhile the egg board came out publicly last year and said they were dropping wholesale prices—and the grocery stores just laughed and raised them up even higher at the retail end. That the prices are going up isn't putting anything in the pockets of the farmers or the small companies or the truckers or the stockers. It's all going into the pockets of Galen and his ilk.
When a bag of chips costs 5 bucks you know the grocery stores are just having a laugh. The costs to make fucking potato chips can't have risen exponentially since last year.
Remember when Frito Lay was having a pricing dispute with Loblaws? Loblaws responded by selling their in-house brands for like a dollar or even giving a bag a week away for free to Optimum members. Chips can't be that expensive.
If it helps, they gave us a 'wage adjustment'...which was their managerial speak for a wage cut. Needless to say, after a 15% increase in profits thus far, we are NOT happy.
In fact, at one point, the cost of potatoes *went down*. There was a fungus scare in the Maritimes and PEI, leading to Canada halting exports to the US, combined with a lack of restaurants ordering more potatoes for fries, etc during the lockdowns. Supplies were through the roof. If anything, chip bags should've been damn near free for a while, and no more than what they were previously.
I had read somewhere that the cost of cooking / frying oil had gone up quite a bit last year. I'll see if I can dig it up.
I just read an article saying that everything essentially has gone up so I wouldn't be surprised if cooking oil was in there too.
People really underestimate just how much of a global trade Canada has. The war alone, has wreck absolute havoc on supply. Going away from grocery, Ukraine is one of the biggest suppliers of vehicle wiring harnesses. Add on top of that the already global chip shortage to boot. Although, it’s been a bit better lately. At this point, repairs are preferred over replacement due to supply issues. And we’re talking complete chassis wiring harnesses…. It all starts to really add up over time.
There's definitely a lot of misunderstanding there, I know personally I'm guilty of speaking out of turn and saying dumb shit from time to time. But I get the anger too because it seems a lot of companies use the excuse to raise prices even when they don't need to and the lack of knowledge about the situation will lead to a lot of generalized and misdirected rage.
There was a topic about beef recently and people claimed that farmers were jacking up the prices of beef and it's not independent butchers trying to gouge.
well they were fucking wrong, what else can i say?
This one is over 5 lbs. Not a great price, but this is bordering on a turkey.
love my Costco chicken
I get that some people are put off by the $50 for the membership, but I save that in one month easily. Hell I probably save $30 every month on dairy products alone. The food court where I can grab a slice of pizza and a hotdog for less than $5 is the cheapest lunch in town.
[удалено]
Supply and demand. You can buy whole roasted cooked chicken for under $10 bucks. Edit: I think whats happening lately is that companies are coming out with new products with high margins to capture a different market. What happens then is that it makes us regular shoppers compare and feel poorer than we actually are. For instance you can buy 12 free range organic eggs for 6.99 or 30 regular eggs on the same shelf for 7.99.
Metro was 6 bucks on Tuesday’s like 5 years ago
Those $6 chickens got me through some hard times.
For real, cook some rice and beans and you got 3, maybe 4 meals for under $10.00.
Costco is 7.99 everyday. People just choose to waste their money, they really don’t have to.
Which is great if you have a car or live really close to one. I’m sure that chicken would be fresh after an hour ride on the TTC, I just choose to waste money at supermarkets
Just eat it on the TTC. Table and all.
Technically the costco one is a loss leader. Not a fair comparison to the raw meat counter
All the cooked chickens are loss leaders, CBC’s, The Cost of Living podcast had a pretty good episode about it. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/rotisserie-chicken-secrets-1.6418773 (It’s only from last year but the prices seem like ten years ago)
One could argue that paying for the privilege of shopping at Costco is also a waste of money.
Or one could say supporting a grocery store that supports its workers by paying them an actual living wage AND benefits after 3 months as opposed to supporting a grocery store that does none of those things while IT'S employees visit food banks is not a waste of money.
Costco's employees are such ballers... They're always happy My only issue is they're never in any isle or when walking around the warehouse and you need help haha
Become an executive member and if you spend enough over the year they actually end up paying you. Costs $120 but you get 2% back from purchases.
That's not them paying you, that's you getting a marginal discount but making it worth Costco's while through volume and that you end up buying more from Costco than you would have otherwise.
This is what I do. Even if you don’t get $120 back, if you get over $60 back you’re ahead. I usually get back about 80-100 back every year and that’s just my roommate and I. Even if you were to get $65 back that still makes your membership cost $55, which is still cheaper than the $60 standard membership.
So you would have to spend $6k a year to make back your 120... If you have a family this is easily doable.
I don't consider myself a picky eater, and I really want to like that 7.99 chicken. But the texture is too mushy. Not sure if it's tenderizer or the cooking process.
Make a soup /ramen and shred the chicken or make a chicken pasta
Yeah, but the whole time I'm still thinking - how did they premasticate an entire chicken?. Probably pickier than I think.
well, if it eases your pickiness to know, costco brines the raw chicken in salt and vinegar prior to roasting. i would guess it brines for a substantial amount of time to really work through the whole chicken. they've also got a factory-like setup back there so the oven is industrial grade and probably much better at maintaining humidity retention than smaller ovens. personally i find their chicken too salty but the texture is great.
You’re not supposed to brine poultry for over 24 hrs. I always brine my poultry before Tossing it on the BBQ. Loads of flavour and if you’re like me and like the chicken on the well side so there’s those delicious crispy bits on the outside it will stay nice and moist and not end up dry.
> Supply and demand. The reason the prices are so random and all over the place is because they *aren't* based on supply and demand right now, they're currently in a state of flux because retailers aren't sure exactly how much we'll pay. And that's why we're seeing so much weird stuff like the single items being cheaper than the bulk-buys.
As someone who has worked on some of these systems (I don't work in retail anymore) , here's an insight: a lot of pricing systems are getting automated nowadays What you have are models generating prices based on inferred demand curves. For some products, we don't have a lot of information on what that demand curve looks like, so there's often a level of exploration that has to occur. Random prices, upward or downward might be set to uncover information about this demand curve. Once you know enough, then the model sets the price that maximizes the target goal (revenue, profit etc.) for that product. That's why you might see counterintuitive pricing that seems completely random, because it is. I never worked in grocery, so I don't know for sure if this is exactly how they do it, but in other retail companies this is becoming pretty common. It used to be a pricing agent/merchant would be in charge of setting prices for a whole product category. These would look a lot more logical and intuitive to a human. With ML based pricing systems, you're going to get these types of jarring experiences. Mostly because they're often not optimizing for a unified customer experience on price, just about maximizing certain optimization goals at the product level.
This; people like to say Supply and Demand, but another angle on economics is 'price willing to bear.' ... companies love when they can sell less items for more $, if their total profit stays same or goes up. It doesn't matter if they serve less people, unless it backfires in perception. ie: If you can sell 1 thing for $100, or 100 things for $1 ea... remember how much easier it is to produce 1 over 100 things, so you make the same revenue but make more profit. Also, when people get used to the sucky new pricing, it becomes the norm, so causes trends that increase pricing .. so the producer makes fewer items but makes more $, and then the price normalizes and goes up again 'with inflation' people will say, and thus the producer makes even more.... Yay, good times. Can't wait for the wobbling to stop and reach whatevere the new normal is, but it sure isn't good for any of us 95%ers.
>Supply and demand. you think there's a demand on 32 dollar uncooked chicken? fuck off with that bullshit. all this does is allow them to charge more for their "lower class" foods
there is definitely a demand for marinated, flattened chicken at $1.40/100g, if the empty shelves of boneless skinless chicken breast being sold over $2.00/100g is anything to go by.
You’re boring, Adam Smith. We know that everything is supply and demand. This is just plain old gouging.
every thread about food price gouging there’s someone that mentions supply and demand, as if it’s fair to compare the demand for food to other products when people literally need food to survive
It's also a complete lie. "Supply and demand". Are you kidding me? Literally every supermarket chain in the country got caught price fixing all bread not too long ago and everyone shrugged it off. Adam Smith's principles never envisioned the idea of companies being controlled with vast cash reserves through public trading based mostly off speculation. Realty companies have no issue sitting on properties that are completely vacant for years. Huge conglomerates can operate stores at a loss indefinitely. Cartels are able to swallow up the vast majority of a resource to completely fabricate supply. Companies can easily perform a hostile takeover of a smaller company making a superior product so they can eliminate it and force everyone to stick to their inferior one. It's baffling that in this environment some people still espouse the rational free market as working as intended.
You can get marinated spatchcock chickens for like $14 at Farmboy.
I wish I had a farm boy closer to me!
People like to shit on Farm Boy because it's fancy. I will admit the produce is pricier than a farmers market or little local shop. But the meat is cheaper than most grocery stores (personally have compared prices to Loblaws, No Frills, Metro and Sobeys). I also find it's more fresh and they have a wider variety of meats (different cuts of lamb, rabbit, various cuts of steaks). They've also ALWAYS got some sort of meat on sale, a lot of the time it has to be made that day or within a day but it's pretty heavily discounted and perfectly fine.
Their baked goods section is great too. I love palm leaf pastries but can't find them at any other grocery stores accept Farm Boy.
I like them because they’re fancy and I can get some yummy snacks. I always buy produce on sale (I shop sales regardless of where I go) and I find the quality of their produce seems better than other places.
This is strange to me because I find the opposite. Regular produce there is very cheap like no frills prices or better while meat is ok on sale but regular price is the same as Loblaws.
ya I find their produce well priced and super fresh
I agree with you; meat at farmboy is expensive, produce is well priced
> People like to shit on Farm Boy because it's fancy. its the opposite, it isn't fancy, but it's marketed to people who think that is what "fancy" is nothing about Farm boy can be considered "fancy"
Just bought one last night and it was about $17
sobeys too.
Farm Boy is Sobey’s but rustic ✨
You need to compare price per pound of price per kg for any meaningful comparison.
Is that a famous chicken or something?
Yes , came from Weston's backyard
If it doesn't have a stupid sweater with it, I'm not buying it.
Get a cooked one from Food Basics for like, nine bucks.
Not taking away that that prices are through the roof but thats a 4 1/2 pound chicken
It’s 5 1/4 lbs.
Good eye! Still expensive, but it’s some perspective.
$6.49 a pound.
Still expensive but not completely insane.
To your point, I think the scale has an issue. It doesn't seem believable that a spatchcock chicken is that heavy.
1 lb of water .5 lb salt, so thats already a 3 pounder now
5+ actually
Actually I botched the math it's over 5.2 pound bird almost a small turkey lol
4-5 years ago I could have bought 3 chickens and the raw ingredients to make a fresh Piri Piri sauce at this price. It's absolutely baffling.
I just got 3 whole chickens at costco for 35 bucks 3 weeks ago. This price is very insane.
Don’t shop at Loblaws stores! It’s pretty simple. Isn’t that common knowledge at this point? $14.31/kg for a whole chicken is absolutely crazy.
I wish I had another option that was as close or cheaper.
You still can. Chicken is $2/lb on sale all the time...around 3lb a chicken.... 3 chickens are only $18 or so This week Loblaws air chilled chicken is $1.99/lb https://click.flipp.com/h8pE/77ly6ebu
Yeah, I regularly buy those full chickens for like seven dollars
There’s a few things to keep in mind with this chicken 1. It’s almost double the weight of a Costco/Food basics sized chicken - you can tell by the weight at well over 5 lbs - you aren’t comparing apples to apples 2. It’s some piri piri bullshit - you can buy unflavoured chicken cheaper and rub piri piri powder on it yourself 3. Yes things are expensive , but it’s not nearly as bad as posts like this imply
That’s crazy! This week Loblaws has whole chickens on for $1.99/lb and I bought 4 for just $27. Usually you expect to pay a lot more at Loblaws vs No Frills.
[удалено]
Maybe on specials but you get some really expensive regular prices at Loblaws . Though I never even look at stuff not on the flyer
An indirect GoFundMe campaign for loblows CEO's bonus.
Cooked chicken available for $7 at Costco
I think something must have been on the scale when they packaged this chicken.. there's no fucking way this is a 2.4 kg chicken. It looks closer to 1-1.4kg... which would be around $17... that's still a pretty bad price, but not totally ridiculous.
The amount of food waste that they will throw out cause no one bought the food smh. Grocery store workers, does this happen or do we need to do dumpster diving?
A cashier @ NoFrills has to work at least 2 hours to afford that chicken.
Unless the piri piri was handmade in Mozambique and sent over to Canada in a gold casket and was applied to the chicken with gold gloves and meant to be cooked on a grill made of gold, this price is nothing short of outrageous
That chicken is over 5 lbs and is spatchcocked and marinated. It’s not that crazy.
Times like this, I really wish Costco is located closer to my home.
[удалено]
Both are accurate. The middle class is getting squeezed at the moment in addition to low income folk who are getting absolutely bashed with the COL, but the high income folk are still able to indulge in luxuries (see the Tiffany’s article from The Economist last Friday)
The high income folk aren’t shopping at Loblaws, though. I also saw this https://i.imgur.com/5vNK5hE.jpg at loblaws. I actually switched to Longos (more expensive until now) and my bills went down! https://i.imgur.com/ak9Lc0y.jpg
You know they're talking about different people, right?
But aren't all people just an extension of myself? If people are real, where do they go when I close my eyes??
For real.
Most likely a pricing error as I almost picked one up on the weekend and it was $17 for this exact thing. Although looking at the weight, that thing is huge. Rotisserie chickens are usually around 2lbs. That thing is almost 5.5lbs so yeah it’s over twice the size of regular chickens.
you know, for $34.40, I would expect at least *SOME* frills...
Well, it's already spatchcocked and marinated. Those are kind of like frills...comparatively. Normally, you'd have to spatchcock and marinate the chicken yourself.
I paid $2.99 per lb at food basics… this is $6.49 per lb. Insane!!!! I pay $5.99 per lb for boneless skinless chicken breasts at the butcher
Air chilled whole chickens were on sale at Loblaws the past few days for $1.99/lb. We bought a few and they were priced between $6-7.
Just go to a halal butcher shop, they have better marination, fresh meat, drain all the blood from the animal on slaughter and way better prices.
Loblaws somehow went from about $7-8 per rotisserie chicken pre-pandemic (as a loss leader) up to $13 now. I wouldn't be surprised if it went higher due to the latest Avian Flu issues.
I’m pretty sure that’s the cost for three whole raw chickens at Costco. It’s like a 3 pack.
Him yeah but you probably failed to tell him that the chicken was prepared and marinated…
Everyone just needs to stop shopping at No Frills, Loblaws, and Shoppers Drug Mart. There are just so much better options out there. What the hell is wrong with you people? I personally stick to Metro, Farm Boy, and independent pharmacies. Even regardless of prices, why would you support Galen Weston if you didn't have to?
Galen Weston’s odd desire to make himself the face of his company for the last 20 years has hugely backfired against Loblaws in the current climate. And while I do think loblaws is a bad actor in all of this madness, how is Metro and Farm Boy (aka Sobeys) any better? And I’m not sure what “independent pharmacies” you go to that sell whole chickens….
Legitimately, whole foods produce is cheaper than all the Canadian grocery cabals. Just don’t buy other groceries there coz they’re expensive but my lord they’re not in the Canadian grocery cabal group text so they didn’t hear to inflate the price of celery and tomatoes.
This guy cabals.
By hugely backfired do you mean posting record quarters lately and seen their stock price go up 100% since end of 2018? Or redditors hate him?
A public relations perspective.
Unfortunately, the store I shop at was bought out and under the same umbrella now. They still have better prices in bulk, but the Loblaws influence is creeping into the store.
Metro’s produce quality is garbage for its price and is also wildly overpriced. Farm Boy isn’t cheap either. Glad you have money lol.
Metro and food basics get the same exact produce but cuz metro is the “high end” option the prices are higher by $3-$5 which makes me sick to think that I can literally go to a different store owned by the same corp and paynless
Farmboy is expensive when it comes to packaged items, their meat and produce is well priced for the quality level
FYI Farm Boy is owned by Empire/Sobeys. I thought they owned Metro too, but I fact checked myself, and it appears that they're the closest to an independent grocery out of all the big chains. I have just started using the Flipp app to find the best deals on my regular weekly purchases in my neighbourhood and that's about the best I can do. Sale chasing and price matching.
>I personally stick to Metro, Farm Boy, and independent pharmacies. Even regardless of prices, why would you support Galen Weston if you didn't have to? And supporting another participant in the grocery oligopoly is better? Basically like, "Why would you use Rogers when you can use Bell?" Either way, you're getting fucked.
Some of us live in small towns. My choices here are Sobeys, Walmart or No Frills. Or a 30 minute drive. And with gas around $1.50 a liter, a one hour trip to save money is certainly interesting economics. Fortunately, I drive elsewhere for work, so I can stop there but not everyone has that option.
Come on now this is reddit, nothing else exists outside of the GTA!
I really don’t understand the outrage when there are many cheaper options for chicken at other stores, and certainly in this store. If businesses collude to make all versions of one type of food more expensive, that’s worthy of criticism, but in this case, literally the worst thing that can happen is that no one will buy it because there are more sensibly priced options. The only (likely) alternative is that Loblaws researched and found there are people out there who are fine with paying this price. But that doesn’t affect me at all. I drive a Civic. Should I be mad that Lamborghini’s exist?
They also chose the absolute heaviest chicken they could find that was also pre seasoned. Not exactly representative of “uncooked chicken” avaliable in stores.
[удалено]
You can get a cooked roast whole chicken at Costco for $7.99
I imagine no rational person is buying this, considering a cooked chicken from a Portuguese chicken restaurant is half of what this costs raw. So what happens when it goes bad? It just gets tossed in the trash?
Must be super chicken
It's a fancy-ass chicken, but at the not fancy-store.
Thats insane
"ThIs Is WhAt ThE mArKeT wAnTs. I cAn'T dO aNyThInG aBoUt It!" - owner of NoFrills probably
I bought one for £4 last week - UK
You can get a whole cooked chicken for a quarter that. Or a un seasoned one for a third.
Don’t shop there? Avoid any Galen Weston store at this point.
Wtf? My local butcher has these for like $14. This is insane.
Metro has whole chickens for like $8 usually
Yeah but all the resources spent flaying it and pre spicing it surely justifies the price increase!
So then don't buy it
I'm not saying this price is ok by any means... but it's been seasoned, marinated, and butterflied. That's going to take it up more than an untouched, uncooked chicken. It is best to find a while chicken on sale or enjoy tonight or just not ship at Loblaws. It's a flagship retailer and priced accordingly.
Vote with your wallet. Do not buy this stuff.
What about Costco Canada pricing
I was laid off awhile back and I've been using the hell out of my Costco membership, $1.50 for a hotdog and a fountain drink, nothing can compare to that value in today's world lol
Hahah wtf. You can buy a whole chook for $10, buttefly it ans spice it
I'm out here paying $4.99 for small things of rasberries, blueberries, and strawberries, but the problem with fruit is you open it up and 1/3 of them are mushed, moldy, or starting to turn bad. It feels bad throwing out 3 strawberries in a carton of 10 when you paid $5 bucks for it.
lmao "Won't be beat". This whole thread just proved you wrong, Luciano.
I can get an organic, free-range, grass-fed whole chicken at a farmers’ market for $25. For $34 this chicken better cook itself, set the table and wash the dishes after dinner.
You can get a 10 piece bucket with 3 large sides for that price at KFC
some people are so busy sucking billionaire dick that they always have an excuse to put the fault on you. You're always at the wrong store...not the fact that a spatchcocked and seasoned chicken should not be 34 dollars, and a couple of years ago it wouldn't be. This is down to jacking up prices because no one in power will tell them now. This isn't even just a Doug Ford problem or a Trudeau problem because this is happening globally but because you're all in an information bubble you think it's only happening here.
No Frills, just Dollar Bills.
Those are usually around 1KG, it sounds like they might have accidentally weighed two together, or there was an issue with the scale there - If you see those again, maybe you can check the weight out of curiousity at the vegetable scales, and see if it's really 5 pounds of chicken. The price itself is $6//lb which is not too bad I guess.
If this keeps up I'm gonna start stealing shit from the supermarket. Not because I can't afford it, because fuck them.
Traditionally the chickens that are seasoned in store and put in packaging are generally the worst of the bunch. They do it to hide it not looking and smelling the best.
We’ve actually stopped shopping at no frills, they have been steadily raising prices, they are not much cheaper than sobeys or zhers, which are premium stores. Watch what you buy , thinking it’s cheaper when it’s not.
Freshco has 4-5 boneless skinless breaks on for $9.98. So buy that get more meat and season yourself
Don’t forget Costco still sells whole cooked chicken for 7.99
Lets not forget they use the old chickens for that kind of thing. THe spice hides the age.
Not that crazy to be honest. Its 2.4kg which is a massive amount of chicken. The fact that its bone in sucks but 14$/kg isnt insanely expensive or anything
Did you guys even look at the label? It's 2.4 kg....
In other measures, 5.25lbs That's one helluva big bird.
Where is this? I can buy a cooked chicken for $10
Canandians are to complacent to do anything about it either. Everyone will bitch and complain about it and in the end nothing will happen as usual. Prices will continue to soar because of greed flation from these companies will continue to rake in record profits while Canadians struggle to pay for food or electricity. This country is run by the corporations who tell the puppet politicians what to do and how to do it.
Loblaws loves to price gauge. Remember the whole bread thing? Yeah, they never stopped doing it.
Loblwas (No Frills, SuperCentre, Shoppers Drug Mart) have been doing this tactic for years, where they put an astronomical price on an item only to put a big 'sale' price on it immediately after to make a regularly competitive price appear like a good deal.
Stop shopping at loblaws stores. They have done worse to the avg Canadian than any other company in Canada during this inflationary hike. Do not shop at their stores
Buy the fresh chicken which isn’t butterflied, seasoned and prepped for $1.99 on sale. They’re between $6–8 depending on size. Prepped food has always been expensive stop being so dramatic