Focusing on a vague, self-serving industry code of conduct only complicates any movement to address food prices and gouging.
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The voluntary grocery industry code of conduct — reputedly to stabilize retail-supplier relations — is certainly not a means of lowering food prices. Nor is it all about promoting food safety and quality.
Yet governments have fixed their attention on this industry-driven initiative and even threatened to impose it.
But the grocery code remains up in the air. Not all major retail grocers agree to the code, with Loblaws and Walmart on the sidelines and undermining it, and Sobeys firmly for it, and Metro and Costco not nixing it.
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Now, an uncovered feature in the code’s development may further sabotage efforts to date.
Access-to-information records I obtained reveal that the code’s arbitration scheme to settle disputes between grocery retailers and wholesalers on certain trade practices is projected to be initially totally paid for by governments and not industry.
That’s controversial.
Last March, the records show, the Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada and the Retail Council of Canada requested in secret to a government committee that the approximately $1.8 million for the code’s first two years to operate a dispute resolution adjudicator office be picked up by governments that the industry would not have to pay back.
That Federal, Provincial and Territorial Working Group on Retail Fees showed its support for using taxpayers’ monies to push forward with the limited voluntary code’s implementation and plans for an arbitration office.
Yet they knew the United Kingdom and Australia code arbiter offices were funded through levies on industry.
Ironically, what set industry suppliers lobbying governments to adopt and pay for such a code of conduct was the actions of Walmart, Loblaws and Metro. During the pandemic, these grocers demanded new kinds of fees from their suppliers for “infrastructure investment” in their stores’ expansion and digitalization.
Needless to say, a code that targets such “bullying” still irks Loblaws and Walmart the most, and they do not want to have an arbitrator’s office messing in their affairs or their various charges to suppliers.
Now, the Commons Agriculture Committee is threatening legislation that will somehow compel Loblaws and Walmart to take part in the code and arbitration.
Yet a briefing obtained on a meeting with the UK Groceries Code Adjudicator in late December indicates that the UK adjudicator rarely uses his mandatory powers of investigation and arbitration.
There still is no final text of the code that MPs and the public have seen. Enacting legislation for such a code would add many more months for a code’s start-up and may not, if done, be in place before the next 2025 federal election.
Focusing on a vague, self-serving industry code of conduct only complicates any movement to address food prices and gouging and any thrust to regulate the food marketplace.
Granted, the pressure to do something more broadly about rising food prices has seen the Commons Agriculture Committee and Competition Bureau examinations of the food marketplace that offered some changes to bolster competition and better identify grocery products.
But more needs to be done than a few food packaging and labelling changes, or attempts to bolster independent grocers to bring about more just consumer food policies that advance both fair pricing and nutrition.
One basic legislative change not being put forward is the establishment of a new consumer fair trade commission with powers to regulate, sue, enforce and penalize unfair food pricing practices.
The Competition Bureau and an industry self-policing code are not the right vehicles or sufficiently arms-length to carry out the broader, enforceable regulation needed for fairer, transparent trade pricing in the food marketplace.
The optics of governments paying for a code of conduct for a divided industry that could raise food prices are not good. Nor is the code the means to achieve a secure and sustainable food marketplace.
Ken Rubin is an Ottawa-based investigative researcher and consumer advocate reachable via kenrubin.ca
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Rubin: Poor optics, divisiveness haunt the grocery industry’s proposed internal code of conduct
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30.04.2024
Focusing on a vague, self-serving industry code of conduct only complicates any movement to address food prices and gouging.
You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
The voluntary grocery industry code of conduct — reputedly to stabilize retail-supplier relations — is certainly not a means of lowering food prices. Nor is it all about promoting food safety and quality.
Yet governments have fixed their attention on this industry-driven initiative and even threatened to impose it.
But the grocery code remains up in the air. Not all major retail grocers agree to the code, with Loblaws and Walmart on the sidelines and undermining it, and Sobeys firmly for it, and Metro and Costco not nixing it.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Now, an uncovered feature in the code’s development may further sabotage efforts to date.
Access-to-information records I obtained reveal that the code’s arbitration scheme to settle disputes between grocery retailers and........
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