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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tariffs signage at Loblaw stores slammed by Canadian shoppers as 'opportunistic'
Loblaws is once again drawing ire from Canadian shoppers who are calling out the grocery giant's decision to mark products affected by the U.S.-Canada tariff wars. The company says the move is meant to bring more clarity to fluctuating pricing, but one expert calls it a puzzling way to address customers' anger at the rising cost of groceries. In March, Loblaw introduced a 'T' label to inform customers that some products' pricing have been impacted by the ongoing tariff dispute between Canada and the U.S. The T symbol is meant to inform customers when 'a product coming into Canada from the U.S. has had a tariff imposed that impacts its price,' a press release from the company explained at the time. The symbol appears within a product's electronic price tag, though there is also signage throughout stores informing consumers about the T label. On a post to the Loblaws is Out of Control subreddit, one user expressed their disdain and scepticism behind the company's intention. "Everything has been jacked up, with very few tariff symbols being used,' user Responsible-Oil3008 wrote on the post titled "Using tariffs to increase price of everything." '(Loblaws) is clearly opportunistically gouging Canadians under the general guise that we either won't notice or will expect higher prices during this geopolitical climate.' David Soberman, a marketing professor at Rotman School of Management in Toronto, says the decision to label tariff-impacted products is unlike anything he's seen before. 'In contrast to most signs that are trying to help people find a product that they want because of a positive attribute (like a sale) this is a sign that is supposed to justify or legitimize a negative attribute,' he tells Yahoo Canada. I'm not sure how easy it is to justify this. He says Loblaw appears to be playing on people's frustrations in the face of inflation and the current political climate. Since President Donald Trump started the trade wars earlier this year, Canadians have been trying to navigate where and how tariffs impact their spending habits. While many have committed to boycotting American products, some customers have found it tricky to grasp what's considered to be truly Made in Canada. Many shoppers are also worried about how the tariff war will hit their pocketbooks. In March, a poll found that almost three-quarters of Canadians felt nervous about personal finances in the face of the trade war with the U.S. 'In this environment there's some prices that may have gone up because of tariffs, and Loblaw's idea is to use that as a way to make sure the anger of an increase of prices is not going towards them but goes towards the tariffs themselves,' Soberman says. He also notes that the tariffs in question impacting the items were imposed by the Canadian government. On March 4, Canada started imposing tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. imported goods — including orange juice, some types of tea and coffees. 'It's unclear if people are going to say 'OK I'm not going to be angry with Loblaws, I'm going to be angry with Trump,'' he says. 'That doesn't make sense because the tariffs were placed by the Canadian government. It's kind of obscure.' Soberman can't say for certain whether other grocery stores will follow suit with the T-labels, but he doubts it. 'I'm not sure how easy it is to justify this,' he says. On a recent trip to two downtown Toronto Loblaws locations, Yahoo Canada could only find a handful of items with the T symbol, mostly in the beverage aisle. These included 1.19-litre bottles of Starbucks vanilla latte for $11.61, 1.75-litre bottles of Pure Leaf iced tea for $7.59, and 1.38-litre bottles of Tropicana Orange Juice for $8.72. In an email, a representative from Loblaw said the products mentioned have increased specifically due to tariffs and that the company is actively working to reduce the overall impact of tariffs by 'exploring alternative sourcing from other countries engaging with suppliers to help minimize price increases.' In an online thread about the "T" symbols at Loblaw-owned stores, some Reddit users expressed their frustration with for what they say feels like passing the buck — literally. 'Like they need a reason to screw over customers,' amtron767 wrote. 'Anything they can blame for raising prices they're going to use.' Others appreciated the labelling. "(It's) not a bad thing,' user Pristine-March-2839 wrote. 'Now we can make a conscious decision about buying an item or not, and it's undoubtedly better than the misleading label of 'prepared in Canada.''
Toronto Star
04-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
Canada is on the brink of a recession. Here's what you can do right now to protect your finances
'If there are tariffs that make trade between Canada and the U.S. more difficult, that could really hurt the Canadian economy and a lot of Canadian jobs,' says Walid Hejazi, professor of economic analysis and policy at Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stocks are plunging and that may only be the start of the pain for Canadian consumers
The shock of United States President Donald Trump's global trade war has already hit the stock portfolios of Canadian consumers, but that may be just the beginning of the pain. 'This is the biggest realignment in global trade ever,' said Walid Hejazi, an associate professor of international business at the Rotman School of Management. Here's a look at the risks facing consumers. U.S. stock markets have shed a staggering US$6.4 trillion in market capitalization in just two days, according to The Wall Street Journal. On Thursday, after reciprocal tariffs were announced, the S&P 500 index fell five per cent, its biggest one-day drop since 2020 and followed that up with a bigger decline on Friday. China soon retaliated to Trump's reciprocal tariffs (he slapped tariffs of 34 per cent on the nation) with matching levies on all imported goods from the U.S., which only rattled the market further. The S&P 500 was down more than 17 per cent from its mid-February high on Friday. Canadian stocks are deep in the red as well, down about four per cent on both Thursday and Friday. In the meanwhile, multiple brokerages, including UBS Group AG and Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, slashed their year-end targets for the S&P 500. Hejazi said that if Canada and Mexico come to a deal with the U.S., there might be some recovery in financial markets — though this could be stifled if more countries retaliate with tariffs like China. JPMorgan analysts recently said the odds of a global recession have increased to 60 per cent. 'The big threat is uncertainty, and people don't know what's coming,' Hejazi warned. 'The longer this goes on, the bigger the impact you're going to see on the real economy.' Canada already lost 33,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7 per cent. 'Now that many tariffs are in place, the trend in the upcoming months is more layoffs and unemployment as tariffs cause widespread economic pains,' wrote Tu Nguyen, an economist at RSM Canada LLP, in a recent note. 'This will be especially prominent in trade-dependent industries such as wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, especially auto production, and steel and aluminum, due to tariffs.' Nguyen added that shrinking demand for goods and services will reduce the appetite for talent, which coupled with recession fears, could potentially lead to layoffs and a slowdown in hiring across sectors. Hejazi said negative expectations could take on a life of their own. 'When people become pessimistic, they stop spending,' he said. 'It's a self-fulfilling prophecy … and it makes the recession more likely.' Economists from Toronto-Dominion Bank recently said U.S. inflation is at risk of approaching four per cent or more, with consumers already starting to 'tap the brakes' on spending. In comparison, they anticipate consumer price growth in Canada to stretch to more than three per cent this summer. Hejazi noted that Canada is only grappling with a trade war with the U.S., while the latter has launched a trade war 'with everybody,' exacerbating the breadth and scale of price growth for American consumers. Yale University's The Budget Lab predicted 2025 tariffs will cause U.S. prices to rise 2.3 per cent in the short-term, the equivalent to a US$3,800 loss per household. The report said clothing and textiles will be disproportionately impacted, with apparel prices surging 17 per cent, but goods like metals, electrical equipment and rice could see hefty price increases as well. Canadian consumers won't be immune to the pain of higher prices, and they aren't just going to be placed on American goods with tariffs, Hejazi warned. Bank of Canada April rate cut in play as job market weakens Canada dodged tariff slamdown, but recession still coming 'When American products become more expensive, Canadian companies raise their prices as well,' Hejazi said, adding that the longer we experience sustained inflation, the harder it can be to bring it under control. 'The challenge is that we're probably going to see prices rise gradually and it's going back to that self-fulfilling (prophecy) and inflationary expectations becoming entrenched.' • Email: slouis@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Canada trade war: Juice 'prepared in Canada' with U.S. oranges doesn't sit right with Canadian shoppers
As many Canadians commit to boycotting products from the U.S. amid a continuing tariff war by Donald Trump, there is one grocery staple that is proving difficult to spurn entirely: orange juice. Since Canadian year-round temperatures make growing oranges nearly impossible — they need warm subtropical or tropical climates to grow — they are almost always imported from other countries, like the U.S. and Brazil. And only some companies who sell orange juice in Canada actually turn the fruit into juice here — with the fruit itself from other countries. This fact is a point of frustration for some Canadian shoppers who took to Reddit in a post on the popular "Loblaws Is Out of Control" thread titled: "F*** this 'prepared in Canada' BS." The post by user TheUtopianCat, which has garnered more than 400 comments, shows a flyer highlighting products that are "prepared in Canada," and includes a bottle of President's Choice orange juice. But the bottle itself fails to identify where the oranges are actually from. 'As long as the oranges are from anywhere but the U.S. I'm good,' user keylimesicles wrote. 'This seems like a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that these oranges are in fact from the U.S.'One expert tells Yahoo Canada this is a missed marketing opportunity for some juice makers. David Soberman is a marketing professor at Rotman School of Management. He says the recent marketing of where the juice is prepared doesn't mean all the ingredients are from Canada. 'The issue of 'prepared in Canada' is something companies have started to highlight but it doesn't guarantee that the oranges weren't grown in the U.S.,' he tells Yahoo Canada. He says on a recent trip to the grocery store, he noticed orange juice products didn't indicate where the oranges came from. He suspects Canadian companies, like President's Choice, import bulk oranges from the U.S., which are then processed and packaged in Canada, a cheaper method than importing from other countries where oranges are grown. 'Oranges are low value per kilo, and because of that, the geographic distance of something to be transported makes a big difference,' he says. 'There are very convenient highways that trucks can bring oranges into Canada from parts of the U.S., where oranges are grown." Morocco, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt also grow oranges. But the distance the oranges would have to travel to make it to Canada is much larger — simple geography. In 2023, Canada imported $595 million in fruit juice, $281 million of which (about 47 per cent) came from the U.S. Juices from Brazil were second-most imported that year, at $103 million (or 17 per cent). Still, there are other options when it comes to sourcing oranges and orange juice. Brazil is actually the world's largest producer and exporter of oranges, and Oasis, the largest Canadian-owned juice brand, sources its oranges from there. Soberman says now is the time for Canadian companies whose juices are made from non-U.S. oranges to capitalize on this as shoppers shun American items. 'There's a marketing opportunity, given the trends,' he says. 'If you said 'produced 100% with Mexican oranges', I'm sure people would choose that if it cost the same and tasted as good.' Still, it seems like some Canadians are prepared to adjust their diets to exclude orange juice altogether. A New Brunswick bed and breakfast owner recently decided to swap orange juice made from Florida oranges from her menu, to apple cider, pressed by one of her neighbours. Others in the comments of the Reddit posts said they planned to change their OJ habits. 'If it's prepared in Canada, presumably it employs at least a few Canadians,' user 200iso wrote. 'But if you're going to go all vegan about buying Canadian... yeah, you'll probably have to stop drinking orange juice. We don't grow many oranges in Canada.' 'So what about not drinking orange juice,' moldibread wrote. 'I stopped buying it years ago. I do buy citrus fruits from Spain, and Morocco all the time, and I drink water.'
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Shoppers want to 'buy Canadian,' but experts warn that some 'made in Canada' labels might be deceiving
Grocery stores across the country are riding the "buy Canadian" patriotic wave to boost sales, but experts are urging shoppers to get informed before blindly falling for any maple leaf signage. As customers continue to prefer Canada-made items amid a tariff war brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump, here are some ways to decipher what is truly Canadian on your next trip to the store. 'There's no specific law on what you can put a maple leaf on,' David Soberman, marketing professor at Rotman School of Management, tells Yahoo Canada. 'What we have to think about in marketing is what this actually communicates. When you put a little Canadian flag on something, some people will think it's a Canadian product." On Reddit, users took to the "Loblaws Is Out of Control" page to decry the "downright dirty and wrong" practice of slapping maple leaf signs on anything. The post, titled "Loblaws is truly disgusting," included photos of bags of frozen fruits and vegetables from the company's in-house brands No Name and President's Choice. But the labels on the display featured a maple leaf icon, even though the bags themselves clearly stated that the frozen pineapple is from Costa Rica, the strawberries from Mexico, and the green beans from the U.S. Some in the comments referred to the tactic as 'canuckwashing' and 'Maplewashing,', but Soberman says the company isn't breaking any laws. "You'd have to be a pretty uninformed Canadian to think pineapples are grown in Canada," he adds. The maple leaf sign on frozen pineapples likely signals that No Name is a Canadian brand, even if the products within those labels are sourced elsewhere, Soberman posits. 'I have a feeling they're trying to capitalize on being a Canadian chain,' he says. 'They're trying to distinguish themselves from other places that sell groceries, like Costco or Walmart, which are U.S. owned chains.' Still, something about this didn't sit right with shoppers. 'This is just down right dirty and wrong just to make a sale,' user Vortechtral wrote. 'They slap on random maple leafs on products in hopes people will purchase them over something else.' You'd have to be a pretty uninformed Canadian to think pineapples are grown in Canada. In a statement, a representative from Loblaw says the company is doing what they can to inform customers about Canadian products, while acknowledging that it can be tricky to distinguish between what's made in Canada, packaged in Canada or produced in Canada. 'We know Canadians are looking for more information about where products come from and we're doing what we can, recognizing the complicated supply chain in food production,' it reads. 'We've added the maple leaf symbol … with certain products throughout the store and online.' The statement further says that in all cases, this symbol means the product was "prepared in Canada" with domestic and/or imported ingredients. Some of these products may have "product of Canada" or "made in Canada" claims on their packaging, which means even more aspects of those products come from Canada. Loblaw has also added a page to its website, breaking down how tariffs will impact their products. Along with the maple leaf symbol, the company will add a T label to any product that's impacted by the tariffs. Soberman says grocery chains are doing their best to cater to Canadian customers who want to support local and national producers. "Make it visible and easy for people to choose, you'll create a more pleasant shopping experience for them because that's what they're looking for right now," he says. As for the future of the "buy Canadian" movement, Soberman thinks getting Canadians to buy American products again might be like trying to "unscramble an egg." "What you have is a situation where even when Trump's term ends, and hopefully we get back to a situation that's more normal, where trade is encouraged between countries, I think you'll still have a situation where buying Canadian and being patriotic will be important," he says.
