Loblaws criticized for decision to end No Name price freeze

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Loblaws’ decision to not extend a three-month price freeze on its No Name products isn’t going over well with grocery shoppers.

In October, Loblaws froze the price of 1,500 No Name products but that came to an end Jan. 31.

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Twitter users have reacted negatively in abundance to the news.

“The price differences between Loblaws and FreshCo in Collingwood is staggering. I’m sure it is the same everywhere. Often 20, 30 ,40% less at FreshCo for the same items. I haven’t shopped at a Loblaw branded store since the early days of the pandemic and don’t intend to start now,” tweeted @GambyVp.

Added @Poppy50365196: “I shopped at least twice a week at the Superstore until I noticed no name brand cheese for $9.00 I stopped shopping there, now I shop twice a week elsewhere … pure greed.”

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The company says it will try to keep down yellow label product-pricing.

However, @Crusty_Old_Punk doesn’t believe it, tweeting: “I guess it’s time to eat the rich.”

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Even federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh got into the action, tweeting in part: “The Loblaws price freeze shows that grocery stores control the price you pay. Left on their own, CEOs won’t help you out with the cost of living.”

However, Loblaws isn’t taking the negative reaction sitting down.

According to the Financial Post, Loblaws’ social media team has been responding directly to some of the criticism on Twitter.

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In one example, a person tweeted, “@loblawco jacked up prices, and then ‘froze’ them at a higher rate for a bit of PR. Now their ‘price freeze’ is over, and they’re going back to seeing how much profit they can make by starving people.”

But @Loblawco replied directly: “We froze prices when costs continued to climb. We took a stand on the price freeze because we knew that the price of food was a huge concern for many Canadians.”

Food inflation has been around 11% for the last four months.