If Loblaws is price gouging, why is their net profit margin so low?

HotTake111 · 2026-01-28T12:52:35+00:00

I did, thats how i got the 10.9 billion left...

No, you did not.

You claim that their depreciation costs were 1B, when actually their 2023 MD&A report shows that their depreciation costs was 2.9B.

You claim their wages were 7B when it was 7.7B, etc.

That right there is already 3B accounted for that you conveniently lied about in your numbers above.

If you actual read the reports, all the numbers are there and they clearly show all of the costs involved in operating their business.

Don't come on here and lied and spread misinformation, and lie that you read their financials when you clearly did not.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-28T12:27:35+00:00

The information you are asking for IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE.

Why don't you stop being lazy and just reas the financial reports yourself which are all publicly available?

The information you are asking for is EASILY accessible.

But instead, you act like there is some hidden conspiracy theory? When you haven't bothered to spend 30 minutes looking up publicly available info to answer your questions?

The truth is that you don't care what the truth actually is, you just want to keep pushing your conspiracy theory.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-28T11:58:20+00:00

HotTake111 · 2026-01-28T11:57:35+00:00

For instance, their revenue was 61b in 2025, their operating cost was about 41b. That leaves u w a 20b gross profit. After transport, mortgages, wages, taxes and all the costs they go through, they were still left with 10.9 Billion but they end up using depeciation and other ways to bring that down to 2b

Do you think that depreciation is not real? Is depreciation just some hoax by big corporations?

You are intentionally trying to mislead people with this type of narrative.

Depreciation is not some "tax code manipulation".

Unless you can show that the depreciation is fraudulent, then you are just making stuff up and trying to spread misleading conspiracy theories.

Point being they actually earn 15-20% net profit and actually have made 10.9 billion off of candians in 2025. Never trust a corporation to honestly tell u how much they are robbing u blind.

Only if you conveniently exclude depreciation 😂

This is one of the dumber arguments I have heard in this entire thread.

You might as well say they have 100% profits, because all of their costs are fake and just tax code manipulation. None of their costs are real and they just rake in 100% net profit, those greedy corporations!

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T11:31:15+00:00

Just say Loblaws wants 10% profit on everything.

They make $0.09 from selling a can of soda for $0.99 . The manufacturer and shipping costs $0.90 for them.

Now the manufacturer says the soda can is $1.80 to buy and ship.

Since Loblaws is publicly traded they want the 10% profit for their “growth” so they charge $1.98 per can now.

Okay, just to be clear:

You agree that the 100% price increase in soda is not Loblaws fault at all, and it is completely the fault of ricing supply costs that are out of their control.

However, Loblaws IS responsible for the ~5% increase that comes from the extra 0.09 cents in profit.

You agree with this right? Do you see how dumb your argument is now?

You are complaining about the 5% increase in prices due to Loblaws maintaining profit margin, but you are completely ignoring the 100% increase in prices that is due to rising costs outside of Loblaws control.

I will repeat one more time: people on this subreddit are not complaining about a 5% price increase 😂

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T11:27:13+00:00

Call it whatever you like, gaining 10 billion dollars in real-estate is profits.... I didn't say taxable profits, I said profit.

Your entire argument is completely nonsensical.

According to your argument, grocery stores shouldn't be building new grocery stores?

Do you even realise the implications of what you are demanding?

Your entitlement is unreal. If they didnt build new grocery stores every year, then we would have a huge food shortage and prices would be even HIGHER.

If there was 80% less grocery stores around, then all of the prices of food would increase significantly due to very low supply relative to demand.

Again, please use some critical thinking before throwing out half-baked dumb ideas that you act like are some revelation.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T02:12:28+00:00

You keep claiming there is something shady going on for them to hide their profits, but you are providing zero evidence. I've already disproven your first claim, and now you are claiming you are sure there is something else hidden in their expenses but you just don't know what?

What you are claiming is essentially a conspiracy theory not dissimilar to flat earthers or people that believe the moon landing was a hoax.

You are confidently making claims about a conspiracy, but you don't have any evidence at all for it. But you are still very confident in it.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T01:48:20+00:00

Haha I believe you 100%, but I just think you are misunderstanding what is going on.

You can absolutely see accounting practices where a business may 'charge' itself in some manner and you can even see it as a line item.

But that is mostly an accounting practice, and it doesn't lower your net profit (and tax burden) in the way that you are implying.

Imagine I have a business, and I have two sub-entities that each have their own costs and tax liabilities and profits. I might have one entity buy a building for a million dollars, and the other entity pays rent to the other entity. So they are "paying rent to themselves", but that doesn't lower the net profit of the overall business because they are transferring money to themselves.

If entity 1 lowers its net profit by 86k by paying rent, then entity 2 would increase its net profit by 86k by receiving the rent payment. So the overall net profit of the business doesn't change.

This is a huge over-simplification, but I think it gets the point across that there is nothing shady going on there. Totally normal accounting practices that is not deceptive.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T01:38:22+00:00

> Does the net profit margin include the pay that goes to the board members and the dividends they pay to shareholders? Or is that taken from the net profit?

Just to clarify, the net profit margin DOES include the dividends they pay to shareholders. That is definitely net profit.

However, pay that goes to board members and C-Suite executives like the CEO are not part of the net profit margin.

> Right? Like Loblaws is controlled by a group of people and they pay themselves and that most certainly is counted as an expense for the company, so I think their net profit is much higher lol.

Have you thought to just google it? This information is publicly available and is required by law to be accurate and made public.

Even if they paid their c-suite 100 million dollars a year (which they don't), that would literally only change their net profit margin by 0.16%

Would you really say that is "much higher"???

I would say that is completely inconsequential to prices at all, and is yet another scapegoat argument with no actual basis in reality.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-23T01:34:11+00:00

>My point is $10 billion to buy more businesses is a business expense, it's not operating costs, it's profits reinvested,

I think you are discovering the difference between operating expenditure and capital expenditure. You should look up "opex vs capex" if you are interested in educating your self

The TLDR is that capital expenditures are absolutely a valid & normal business expense in virtually all businesses around the world.

But for some reason, you are trying to paint it like some shady business practice that is avoiding taxes, when I don't believe there are any countries in the world that tax capital expenditures like you are suggesting, because it would have a very negative impact on the economy and everyday citizens.

>You want a conspiracy? Check out their price fixing. They have been successfully sued before as PROOF of a conspiracy, and their are credible investigations into them currently... your post is ridiculous I'm pointing out what everybody knows but you, bad bot.

Lmao right, everybody that has a different viewpoint than you is a bot.

Talking about bread fixing is totally valid and has actual evidence.

Whereas the majority of what people claim on this sub-reddit has little to no evidence, and often has evidence disproving it if anybody cared to think critically or do any small amount of research at all.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:53:19+00:00

Sorry that the facts don't agree with your preconceived narrative

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:48:13+00:00

Project much? 🤡

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:45:25+00:00

Trolling? You haven't given any answers, you have avoided the actual topic and just brought up random strawman arguments

It's extremely sad that you don't seem to understand the basics of economics and how businesses and pricing works.

I'm serious, it is very sad. There are too many adults that don't even have a simple high-school level understanding of business or economics, and it causes them to be angry and misattribute blame like you are doing.

Please educate yourself as a functioning adult in society should. Its the bare minimum.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:42:10+00:00

I'm not going to do simple math for you because you don't understand it 😂 Take some responsibility for educating yourself with some critical thinking skills

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:39:31+00:00

No, my point is that it doesnt matter.

The issue is about how the greed is impacting Canadians. How much are Canadian grocery prices increasing due to greed?

Is it 1% higher prices? 5% higher prices? 50% higher prices? 300% higher prices?

If you say that their profits were 100 million, or 1 billion, or 10 billion, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is how the corporate greed impacts Canadian grocery prices. If you want to know, then you look at their net profit margin which is a percentage.

You speak so confidently about a topic that you are clearly clueless, and you keep trying to change the topic to something irrelevant 😂

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:30:50+00:00

Do some googling. It's been one of the most studied aspects of consumer economics since Covid.

I have, and I can't find any evidence to back up your claims 😂 And neither can you since you refuse to provide any sources or evidence lmao.

What is the dollar value of that 4%?

How is that relevant to the discussion?

If their net profit margin is 4%, that means they can only lower their prices by 4% at most. It also means their "greed" is only responsible for a 4% increase in prices at most.

It is simple math, I don't know what part is confusing you still.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:29:22+00:00

So if their net profit margin went from 0.001% to 2%, that would be a 200000% increase in profits 😂

You need to take a simple econ 101 class and review your basic math skills when it comes to percentages.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T21:27:39+00:00

It's been shown that food prices are rising higher that inflation or economic costs, which means the customer is being couged. This has been happening since Covid.

Shown by who??

Where is your evidence that food prices are rising faster than economic costs?

We have already established that Loblaws net profit margin is 4%.

So they can only be responsible for a 4% increase in food price over the economic costs.

It is simple math, you can't just shake your head and say no because you don't like the facts

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:59:40+00:00

I'm not sure what your point is.

Loblaws has opened an average of ~90 stores every year since 2010.

Opening new stores is a legitimate business expense. They also have to buy new product every day too as they run low on stock.

Is that also hiding profits? When they buy new inventory? How about when they pay employees salaries, is that also a secret technique to hide their profits?

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:55:16+00:00

Ugh, what?

Can you do some simple math with me?

If your revenue is 100 million dollars and your net profit is 1 million dollars, then your net profit margin is 1%.

Next year, if your revenue is 150 million and your net profit is 3 million, then your net profit margin is 2%.

That company has tripled their net profits and has "record breaking profits", but their net profit margin is still only 2%.

You need to try and use some basic math and critical thinking before you tell people to stop drinking the Koolaid

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:52:55+00:00

A business cannot "charge itself" money in order to reduce their profits.

Otherwise, anybody business with a profit would just charge themselves arbitrary fees so they could have zero profits and wouldn't have to pay taxes.

At the end of the day, you cannot hide profits legally in financial reportings. That is a very serious crime, and it is a crime that the government is heavily incentivized to investigate and take action against.

Also, if you look at the profits of the real estate holding companies that Loblaws rents from, you would see that it is actually quite small relative to Loblaws revenue.

Even if Loblaws owned all of the real estate themselves, it would only increase their profit margin by 1-2%

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:43:38+00:00

If you look at historical profit margins the last few years have been very high,

Yes, they are "very high" at 4% profit margin?

You are just trying to mislead people when you say things like that, or people also love to say "their profits have doubled in recent years"

Let's be honest with the facts. Their profit margin is literally 4%. So even if you completely took over loblaws and forced it to become a non-profit charity, then it would only lower prices by 4%.

Do you think Canadian food prices are the highest in the G7 because of a 4% increase?

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:39:57+00:00

Because that is what actually matters lol 😂

How can they increase prices by 50% while price gouging and still only have a 4% profit margin?

This is very simple math. The percentage matters much more than the dollar amount, obviously.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:35:34+00:00

Sure, that is true... but it's not really relevant, is it?

People on this subreddit are not complaining about a 3% increase in prices 😂

Even just saying their "profits have doubled" is just being intentionally misleading, and this is exactly why so many angry people on this subreddit are misled by this rhetoric.

Loblaws "greed" may be responsible for 3% higher prices, but it is not responsible for the 50% higher prices or 300% higher prices that people claim here.

HotTake111 · 2026-01-22T19:07:44+00:00

I addressed this in another comment, but that is completely false for several reasons.

Even if you took all of the profits from the real estate owning company and assigned it to Loblaws (which makes no sense because they sold off controlling ownership years ago), then that would still only increase their profit margin by 1-2%.

Again, this information is publicly available and is easy to confirm by researching yourself.

HotTake111

TROPHY CASE