Not for nothing, but there does seem to be something weird going on with Canada. There's a popular argument in left US politics that "inflation" is a canard, and what we're really seeing is collusive price fixing by big corporations. But you can just look at the data to puncture that argument: corporate profits have, excepting a blip in the middle of the pandemic, tracked GDP (they're at "all time highs" because everything else is too). But profits as a percentage of GDP seem to be markedly higher in Canada than here.
“Something weird” is the fact that oligopolies are ruling Canada and there is way less competition than in US. Telecom is the most egregious example but grocery chains are a good example too.
I recently got into mixology and I've grown to despise the alcohol monopoly(s) in Canada.
Paying 20-25% more per bottle than Americans is something you get used to but it repeatedly sucks to watch bartending youtube or read books and not being able to make something because it's not sold in Ontario. Quebec is slightly better (the french know how to drink) - but even there if you want to buy Yellow Chartreuse, which is in a ton of cocktails, you need to basically own a bar + a liquor license to get access to the full inventory.
There's a million small details that make living in America easier (and way cheaper). Especially when you're into any niche hobby. /rant
Usually Canada bars are only allowed to sell what they buy/import through the provincial liquor monopoly. Ontario bars/restaurants can't go to Quebec for stock. I'm guessing some of those items in Quebec are special imports and if you're not on the ball, it can be a while before you can acquire more.
But haven't cell phone prices been going down considerably in the last few years? I remember 10 years ago you'd pay like $100 for a 5GB plan, seems that now you get that for like $50-$60
Strange almost all of those reported numbers show the average rise in prices at grocery stores to be far lower than the average inflation rate.
> [The] report concludes that there is “little evidence to suggest grocers in Canada and the United States are colluding or taking advantage of the current food inflationary wave the western world is experiencing.”
So I guess despite tptacek claim that Canada is unique the high prices and the gov-backed monopoly problem is not a new thing, it's just compounded on top of the (predicted post-COVID) inflation issues.
Another lesson in: always doubt convenient narratives in the media...
Purely anecdotal, I track every single expense. And I buy food at the same place and in the same way for ages, but I have been tracking expenses only since December 2021, my grocery expenses were costing 1000$/month in January, now despite reducing my purchase of red meat, we spend 1400$/month now. I presume there are factors at play here (i have children), but the price increase is still remarkable.
FWIW the percent you've reported is 28.5% increase but the study shows 10.3% national average [1].
Maybe it's due to preferring non-discount brands?
> While 33.0% of Canadians buy privately labelled products all the time, 53.6% of Canadians will buy them occasionally. Based on our estimates, the average Canadian grocery
shopper will spend $821 buying privately labelled food products this year, which is likely the highest amount ever. Canada’s Food Price Report 2022 predicted that the average adult in Canada will spend about $3,500 on food this year.
> Therefore, we estimate that about 23.4% of
the budget spent at the grocery store is intended to purchase privately labelled food products. Again, this is likely the highest level recorded yet in Canada, and we are expecting that percentage to increase in 2023. This is probably due to higher food prices, as grocery shoppers seek refuge with lower-priced brands [2]
It seems that there are still lower priced alternatives. So those who prefer organic/higher quality food products are paying the highest premium.
So it's possibly you haven't changed your shopping preferences because you prefer higher quality (and probably healthier alternatives) than a price-conscious consumer who fell back on buying "no-name" brands, which fall under "private label" aka bigco discount brands.
For the record I don't mean to downplay the impact on inflation and higher food prices of the average Canadian family.
Maybe. I assumed costco was always the cheapest in terms of price vs quality, that's why we went there. It's been hard to beat, but we do live in Vancouver, so there is that.
IDK, my anecdote: I'm a well paid software dev and I noticed I pay a lot more recently but I prefer going to fancier places with high quality vegetables (usually Sobeys)...but I also rarely discount hunt. I went grocery shopping with my mom recently and she got angry multiple times because I wasn't seeking out the cheaper stuff.
Later my mom said her and my sister (who has kids) have both been going to No Frills more often and have been avoiding more expensive items. She listed off 5 vegetables/fruit she doesn't buy anymore. So when you have to stretch each dollar you definitely pay attention to details like that.
Markets always adapt when prices hike... some people are just slower to notice.
The difference I think is that neither of the things you mentioned are essential inputs to a nutritious diet. Seems less defensible to be stealing non-essentials.
Interestingly, in one of Eric Bogosian's routines from 'Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead' one of his characters specifically calls out eating Haagen Daz and Slim Jims.
If you can afford to buy food, but decide to shoplift instead as a moral stance, you are hurting the poor. The stores will raise prices to cover the loss and the poor can’t gamble on a $2,000 fine.
You can argue that stores ought not raise the prices, you can argue that the law ought to not consider shoplifting a crime, but neither of those conditions are the case, so your moral stance ends up being a material cost to the very people you claim to be fighting for.
> "Galen Weston and his family are thieves who have profiteered for decades, and if you think it's wrong to steal food (product insured for loss) in order to survive... you're a clown," wrote one Twitter user of the trend this week.
And they're bringing out the old 'insured' line, as if insurance premiums don't come out of the price everyone else is paying. And, furthermore, I don't really think stores are insured for or would file claims for 'regular' shoplifting; it doesn't make sense to buy insurance for events that are occuring continuously and causing relatively small losses; insure for looting/riots, yes, that's a large loss and low probability (hopefully).
It'd be cool if you could partially pay for something without the consent of the store, but without having to stand in front of a person and say "I'm stealing this; would you help me with the math?"
Why Canadians pay much more and have access to less than Americans despite living in a country that is 95% culturally, economically, and politically identical to the US, I do not know. I didn't fully understand the disparity until I read the amazing stories in a /r/canada discussion. victorn72's account <http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_pr...> caused my jaw to drop open.
Economies of scale likely plays a large role. Canada is a very large country (2nd largest by area) and very sparsely populated (same population as California). It simply costs more per unit to distribute food over such a vast area. The Northern climate and distance from growers also limits the availability of certain foods.
30-40% of food in the U.S. is thrown out (43% of that at the household level, 40% at restaurant & grocery store level). The dissonance between this percent, 34 million food insecure Americans, and record high grocery prices is unreal. We need a serious change in both consumer behavior and grocery store & restaurant logistics/policy.
What do you count as thrown out? When I cut the hard stalks off of broccoli that makes up a significant percentage of the food by weight. But they aren't really edible anyway.
If I lived on a farm then I would feed all the food waste to pigs, then eat the pigs to achieve near zero food waste. Just like my uncle used to do. But I live in a suburb and my neighbors don't appreciate pigs (or compost piles). So anything we can't eat goes in the garbage.
Broccoli stalks are perfectly edible and nutritious, they just aren't conventionally used in many dishes. I sometimes make hot pot where I include the stem as well. Another cultivar of the same vegetable becomes the kohlrabi, where the stem especially is used.
I will save a gallon ziplock worth of broccoli stems in the freezer (dice before freezing) and then turn them all into broccoli cheddar soup when the bag fills up. I’ll buy one crown of fresh broccoli to get some florets into it.
I started composting last year and combined with bottle return (takes 5 mins once a month at the grocery store) it's amazing how much waste and recycling I've been able to reduce. My next goal is all but eliminating my plastic use, through refill stores, laundry sheets (not pods!) and the like. It's not actually that hard to reduce our individual impact, just requires unlearning some wasteful habits
I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit incensed to see the bag of Tyson’s frozen chicken I usually buy for around $8-10 being sold for $15. Stealing it wouldn’t solve the problem (probably would have the opposite effect) in the long term but something needs to be done about skyrocketing food prices.
> something needs to be done about skyrocketing food prices.
Ending the war in Ukraine might help. The disruption in direct food production as well as fertilizer production has a big impact on food prices worldwide; even if your locale doesn't source directly from Ukraine.
Otherwise, there's the usual options: choose less expensive altnernatives, where available. Grow your own, if economical. Forage, if possible.
People are definitely choosing cheaper alternatives where I live. Prices of pasta and ground meat have gone up 20-40%. Meanwhile prices for better cuts of meat, salmon and seafood are stagnant. I don't doubt that at least a part of this difference is because people are choosing cheaper foods.
Realistically, this war is going to continue for another year or two, with the next presidential election in Russia playing a big role in how it ends. Food prices are going to increase unless there will be considerable government intervention to markets to cover the extra costs and to invest in production and logistics.
Elections in Russia are a ceremony of confirmation, which also requires certain numbers to be shown to public. It is hard to go from 30 to 70% by just faking it, so they have to please the core voters. If that means ending the war, they will end it. If that means winning it, they will keep fighting for another 5 years.
> Realistically, this war is going to continue for another year or two, with the next presidential election in Russia playing a big role in how it ends. Food prices are going to increase unless there will be considerable government intervention to markets to cover the extra costs and to invest in production and logistics.
You're assuming there will be a next election in Russia... Putin and his pals are bent on turning what's left of Russia into North Korea, they don't believe in democracy.
The war will end when Putin is violently overthrown by a competing faction inside the Russian government. After all, most of these Russian politicians are just gangsters, not ideologues, and the war in Ukraine is bad for business.
I’m 100% confident that there will be elections in Russia which will result in another term for Putin. They may alter the course of action to address the internal political goals, either prolonging the war or finishing it with an outcome satisfactory for Ukraine. This war is just a projection of internal policy now with the only goal of putinist oligarchy to stay in power.
"The war will end when Putin is violently overthrown by a competing faction inside the Russian government. After all, most of these Russian politicians are just gangsters, not ideologues, and the war in Ukraine is bad for business."
Timeline? It has been bad for business since the beginning, and he's still here...so, maybe not?
Iunno, anywhere urban/suburban with rules "authorizing" it seems to make it so impractical that it's easier to continue buying torture chickens and eggs from the grocery store.
The answer to expensive food is to eat cheaper food. You can easily eat on $2 per day. Those of us who grew up in poor countries know this.
Even in rich countries, it was not long ago (like, in living memory) that meat was a specialty only afforded occasionally.
One of the things about principaled stances is they are a lot more powerful when adhereing to the principal is inconvenient.
My guess is there are always people stealing. They will use whatever post-hoc justification. If it wasnt the prices it would be corporations, or big-agri, or some provincial law.
The two biggest grocery retailers in Canada have below 5% profit margins: Loblaw's profit margin is less than 4% [1] and Empire ~2.5% [2]. The other smaller ones are in the same ballpark. Put it another way, if grocery stores reduce all prices by 4%, they will be operating at a loss. Prices have jumped, but I am inclined to believe it is due to fundamental market forces (Ukraine war, avian flu, energy crisis, etc.) and not the retailer, who just happens to be the only part people can see and direct their anger at.
They both segmented all their real estate into REITs (Choice and Crombie), so a lot of the margin has been pushed there for tax reasons (and to keep the retail operations from tanking the capital, which I think will one day happen, but I'm anti-retail).
But it's also true that prices jumped, but margins were unchanged, so they were making more money for the same work. In an efficient market, you'd expect margins to drop. (Unless it can all be explained by inflation of course and that extra money gets you as far as it used to).
It doesn't seem to be the case. I am just gonna look at Loblaw/Choice, but I imagine the other would not be too different. Loblaw had a revenue of 55.25B and a net income of 2.12B [1], bringing the profit margin to 3.84% over the previous 12 months. Choice's revenue was 1.34B [2] over the same period. Even if the entire revenue was pure profit for Loblaw, it would bring Loblaw's profit margin to (2.12 + 1.34) / 55.25 = 6.3%. This seems higher, but still not remotely high enough to explain the price increases.
But more importantly, Choice REIT's revenue has been fairly consistent over the past couple of years. There is no sudden increase in the past year or so to coincide with the price increases. So the extra price is NOT getting passed from Loblaw to Choice. Choice gets the same amount it was getting in 2019 more or less. Choice's total revenue has been 1.29B (2019), 1.27B (2020), 1.29B (2021), and 1.28B (past 12 months) [3].
Disclaimer: I am not well-versed in the field of finance, so I may have misunderstood the statistics. Please double-check them from the links below if you so prefer. I do not understand why the revenue in the statistics page is 1.34B, but total revenue in the financials page is 1.28B. But the difference is small enough not to change the conclusions either way.
All stores should just lock down all items, and have customers ask what they want and bring them to the front. That's how stores are run in the third-world.
A lot of Canadian ones are doing "click-and-collect". Either for free, or a small fixed charges that's absolutely worth it.
I especially like it when they have a limit of 10 on some special, so I pick up 10 from my online order, and grab 10 from the store.
Substitutions could use some more logic. Soda often goes out of stock. I don't need 40 bottles, but I'd like a mix of 10 of whichever 4 I like are in stock. That's a lot to ask of their ordering system, so I get 10-40 bottles...
The Ralphs near me, in SoCal, does. I was tired at the end of a long day of managing 3 sick kids and a sick wife. In my absent mindedness, I had 17 items in the 15 item self check out. I had to get a clerk to come over and authorize it for me.
That's one thing. Then there's loss-leader sales limited to "2 per customer/family" or some such because they know someone would fill up their cart with it.
Of course, if you self-check out and pay cash, they're less likely to spot you with the reduced supervision of self-checkout.
I've been wondering how much value could be generated if people could order their regular purchases months ahead of time. I am absolutely going to need to buy pasta three months from now. Why can't I purchase my pasta now and save the grocery store the effort of stocking the shelf just for me to pick it up? Long-term preordering could probably save labor and make demand forecasts more accurate. Just a thought.
Yeah, a lot of stuff is seasonal, so there should be a deal to buy a hundred pounds of carrots in October vs April. Certainly the retailer pays differing prices or runs its own cold storage warehouse at a cost.
I don't understand why Canadian and US prices are so sticky. In Europe, a frozen pepperoni pizza might cost you 3,78 EUR and the vegetarian will cost you 12 centimes less because the retailer passes on their differing costs.
Meanwhile in Canada/USA, I'll take the 3-meat because it's the same price.
>I don't understand why Canadian and US prices are so sticky. In Europe, a frozen pepperoni pizza might cost you 3,78 EUR and the vegetarian will cost you 12 centimes less because the retailer passes on their differing costs.
>Meanwhile in Canada/USA, I'll take the 3-meat because it's the same price.
Be careful, even though they're the same "price", the net weights are different so they're not actually the same price.
I have been hearing about this for a number of months now, and it feels more like entitled people boasting than poor people trying to survive. It isn't really in the interest of either party to see shoplifting rise. Shoplifters only benefit when the grocery stores turn a blind eye and grocery stores are only willing to write off so much in losses due to their behaviour (e.g. until it is more profitable to pay for better security).
(Most) poor people don't trust one another to begin with.
Some ethnic communities do in fact have an array of services that are provided inside the community, like loans and food banks and so they can negotiate directly with producers in bulk. That's how these communities thrives where ever they live. In some communities, someone who wants to buy a house or a business isn't going to ask for a loan at a regular bank.
Co-operatives do work but often legislators are making it extremely hard for people to organize, because of the regulatory capture that favor their wealthy allies.
1. Which corporation reported record profits exactly? If that is not a grocery store chain, then it is hurting wrong business.
2. If there were any unjustified increases within the country, how did anti-trust regulator react? If price increase results in bigger profits, i.e. unjustified by increasing costs in the supply chain, it is anti-trust case and government must react. Why not demanding this action?
3. If price increase was due to increasing costs, then it is fair and there is no moral ground in stealing anyway. Instead the government should intervene and subsidize some markets to protect population from inflation shock. Why not demanding this action?
My point is, there exist lawful mechanisms to mitigate the negative economic effects of the current situation in the world. They must be activated by a responsible government. Theft is never a solution to anything.
I'm not disagreeing per se, but you may be interested to listen to this interview with the Competition Commissioner for more perspective. My takeaway is that it's the laws, not the enforcers, that need to change:
Great interview, thanks for sharing. I don't doubt that he wants things to change. When I refer to the Competition Bureau being feckless and captured by industry, I suppose the conclusion is correct but it should be applied upstream of the Bureau, with the lawmakers themselves enforcing the fecklessness, due to being captured by industry.
> In Canada, our anti-trust regulator is completely feckless and captured by industry.
For non-Canadians, this is by design, our government carved out NAFTA-exempt industries (Grocers, Dairy, Telecom, and Banking) during NAFTA negotiations, subsequently creating protected industries from which we now have oligopolies.
Grocery itself has more competition than the rest (thank you Walmart), which is why you gotta be careful when making US shopping trips. I've found rice, oils, canned beans/tomatoes, carrots, bananas, potatoes, onions all cheaper in Canada.
And every year, I get more and more non-perishable grocery stuff from Amazon.ca
Fun fact: Canadians can import non-prescription meds by mail, officially up to 90d supply (so I address it to "Family Scoundreller"), so I cruise ebay for a lot of that stuff.
> Fun fact: Canadians can import non-prescription meds by mail
I am jealous of Americans and their 10,000IU Vitamin D pills. Canada limits the same to 1,000IU per pill. Would this be allowed to cross the border or no?
Officially, no. If you're travelling yourself by car/air/rail/sea, it's incredibly unlikely the officer will even know there's a difference.
Looking up the prescription regulations, only >2500 IU requires a prescription, so if you can find 2500s to import, that's over-the-counter and can be lawfully imported for 90d personal use. https://www.napra.ca/national-drug-schedules/?_nds_drug_name...
If you try to have 10000s mailed from USA by USPS, there's a very rare chance that it could be reviewed by Health Canada and they would deem it prescription-only and seize it, or they could "use their discretion" and still let it through anyway because seizing is a lot more paperwork.
Don't bother with UPS or Fedex shipping into Canada. Ever.
Note: if you're in Canada on a work/study permit, there are some exemptions allowing you to import non-narcotic prescription medications.
I didn’t know this. When you say they were carved out, you mean carved out from being forced to allow other NAFTA member companies from entering the market at all? Or exempt from having to ensure anti-trust approval would meet international standards?
Effectively both. NAFTA and other trade agreements often let foreign corps initiate trade decisions that normally only a government could invoke.
TransCanada is doing that against the US Gov for cancelling a pipeline project. The company will probably lose, but so much $ is at stake, so it makes sense to try.
As a canadian who lives within walking distance of about 6 different grocery stores (3 major chains and some smaller independent stores), i think things are just fine.
Having options of places to go to pay essentially the same price doesn’t feel fine to me. We’ve got four major chains within a 5 minute drive and two very small independents, and the prices at the chains are all within a few percent of each other unless you want to mix and match each week for the various items on sale. This would normally mean that the market had found the equilibrium price that eliminates excess profits but, like our telecom industry, there are record profits. The variety of options is just for show, masking the inherent price fixing by the oligopoly.
This link just shows that the profit margin hasn’t increased. Record high profits occur when record high sales occur even if the profit margin is constant.
This link also only looks at gross margin - if revenues and gross profit increase, their fixed operating costs (rent for example is usually fixed for 10-20 years for grocers, or the site is owned by the grocer) are now spread over higher sales so their operating profit (EBIT or EBITDA) can increased dramatically.
> Record high profits occur when record high sales occur even if the profit margin is constant.
Sure, but why would anyone call such a situation profiteering?
Furthermore it seems unlikely that the amount of food canadians have eaten has changed significantly over the last few years. Its not like the population increased significantly.
Sounds good, but what should they do once woken up? Vote PC? NDP/Liberal alliance? Bloc? There is literally no one that wouldn’t ultimately bow to corporate interests (source: our entire history).
And Canada never had a revolution, so the core theme of its laws are still rooted in how to keep some wealthy family's do-nothing ancestors wealthy without doing anything useful.
Suggesting that people who can't afford to eat should liaise with their elected official, who should present it to the legislature, empower the Competition Bureau to properly investigate the issue, then wait for the Competition Bureau to audit these companies and win a case through the judicial system (and that's the ideal case) – well, I think that's going to happen too slow to prevent starvation.
I'm personally worried about this because rising food prices predict riots and rebellions through history. Either prices have to come down, wages have to go up, or we're gonna see a greater loss of social cohesion and we'll have a much bigger problem on our hands. Getting the government to act on this on a macro scale is going to be a huge task given who's in power right now.
As for "greedflation", see econ professor Trevor Tombe: "Are rising profits fueling inflation?"
> Rising grocery prices—the focus of Mr. Singh’s attention—also does not reflect rising profit margins. In fact, food stores and food manufacturing [both have lower profit margins this year than last][0].
> One can even see this in the financial statements of large food retailers. Loblaws, for example, [reported a net profit margin][1] of 3.04 percent in the second quarter of this year and 3.03 percent in the second quarter of last year. Their rising profits are due entirely to rising sales, not increasingly uncompetitive behaviour as some suggest.
>
> The entire increase in average markups in Canada are therefore related to rising global energy and commodity prices.
[…]
> There are of course important issues to explore and debate when it comes to the level of competition in certain areas of corporate Canada, and there are also many overlapping causes of rising consumer prices. But when it comes to claims that “greedflation” is a key driver of recently rising inflation rates, the data is very clear: it’s not.
I’m not Canadian, so lack context to find the right sources. I assume that in theory government can act on behalf of voters proactively as our (German) government did with heating prices. Apparently, as you and other commenters say, in Canada things are different and popular uprising in the form of grocery theft seems to be the only option. Sorry to hear that.
This is a highly unproductive attitude and outlook to have. It is precisely when families are starving that you want to encourage more people to produce and sell bread, and for people who are consuming more bread than they need to, to be as economical/non-wasteful in their consumption as possible. That is, people using bread for unnecessary uses like to feed birds, or who don't eat all their bread before it goes bad, should buy less bread so that it is available for others who have greater use of it (eating every slice, because they're hungry). The only workable way to do this is through the price mechanism. Raising prices incentivizes people to consume less bread, so the marginal bread consumer (bird feeders, etc) consume less, and it incents marginal producers to produce more bread.
Vilifying the making of profit of scarce goods like bread during a famine is exactly the wrong idea, and only makes the problem worse. We _want_ people to be able to make a profit by helping others. If as a society we shame people for selling bread when there are hungry people, ironically there will be less bread sellers and prices will go up.
The way to alleviate food insecurity is to promote more competition among food producers/retailers, and to allow price signals to work their magic. Of course, combined with a reasonable redistribution scheme to provide a baseline level of income to people.
This objectivist fairy tale falls apart on first contact with reality.
- Income and savings are not evenly distributed, your rich birdfeeder would barely notice the price bump while the poor starver would have even less to eat. Rationing would be a closer solution, but that needs to be planned carefully to avoid similar loopholes (for example: if you can afford meat then you'll need less wheat, leaving more available for waste).
- Crisis-induced profit incentives aren't going to lead to increased production, because 1) setting up production lines takes time and long-term investments, and 2) solving the crisis brings the price back down to normal, anyone who wouldn't invest at the normal prices would be stuck holding the bag in the end. We saw this in action a year ago, during the COVID chip shortage.
I'm not invoking Ayn Rand or Objectivism here, merely basic mainstream economics. Imagining a single billionaire who has a bird feeding hobby is not realistic. True, I don't think an extremely wealthy bird feeder is going to cut back, but there's a continuum of producers and consumers all the way up and down the wealth scale and many of whom are price sensitive. A million different small adjustments all combine to re-allocate capital and labour to more efficiently allocate food towards people who are hungry. Manufacturers of bird feed packs may switch their ingredients on the margin away from grains that humans consume. Pig farmers may switch away from purchasing bread. Food processors, restaurants, etc will on the margin switch towards less wasteful/decadent products, since the relative increase in the price of staples make them more profitable than luxury foods. Distributors will find it makes sense to spend more money to buy food from further abroad, diverting trucks, trains, and ships from less urgent needs towards food transportation. All these millions of actions do have an effect.
We pay $140-$160/week with no animal products. Family of four but two young kids don’t eat as much as teenagers or adults so maybe effectively a family of 2.5 or 3. Animal products would likely double this weekly spend and older kids would probably double it again.
Its about on track with the US. In 2021, the US average expenditure for a family of four was 11,908 [1]. Converting USD into CAD yields... 15,938.56. And to add to the anecdote, I spent about 4,000 on food in 2022 just for myself, so that tracks personally at least.
This is all food, including dining. Dining prices are dominated by labor costs. But even raw food is currently challenging, with the war in Ukraine cutting off wheat growing and fertilizer production, and bird flu cutting supply of chicken and eggs.
It's wrong to steal. Canada has many food banks, charities and social programs to help people who genuinely need assistance. These people aren't stealing to feed their hungry child, they're stealing in protest of price inflation - which just exacerbates the inflationary pressure. It's misguided and should not be celebrated.
Privatized, for-profit food will result in hungry people. This is not at all new. There will also be stories about welfare moms stealing candy bars to distract from the real issue because once people are angry about anything they stop being reasonable, take sides, and dig their heels in.
Privatized, for-profit food will also result in price gouging for the less affluent. This is also not new. The current price bumps are being felt by the middle class, though, and that's a potential danger to the price-raisers. People often see it as ethical to beat up the bully (thus our entirely punitive prison system); parallel to that, they see it as ethical to steal from the thief.
People stealing raises prices. Corporations price gouging for no reason raises prices. Under capitalism, shouldn't there be new grocery stores coming in to undercut existing ones? Why isn't that happening? Seems like the only solution.
We definitely don't want "rent controls" on food prices, I'd like to avoid mass famine.
Barriers to entry are quite high right now. Property prices are up, transportation costs are just coming down lately, wages are up on average. When costs went up, the ones most willing to raise prices were able to build capital and buy out the rest.
The key point I am making, and what the article seems to imply, is that people would steal less if food was more affordable. And corporations are still raking in record profits so there is still a surplus.
