Galen Weston Says Grocers Can’t Control Prices
Why limited competition and weak regulations keep Canadian food costs climbing.
Galen Weston has spent years as the public face of Canada’s biggest grocery chain, Loblaw, and rising food prices have made that a pretty rough gig. The guy runs a family empire that includes No Frills, Superstore, and Shoppers Drug Mart. When Canadians feel the pinch at the checkout, a lot of them point the finger straight at him and the handful of other big players who dominate the market.
Just a couple of days ago, on October 30, 2026, Weston stood up in Toronto and said he’s worried food inflation could heat up again. Middle East tensions are messing with global oil supplies. That drives up diesel and fertilizer costs for farmers and food producers. Those higher input prices tend to show up on store shelves eventually. He was clear it probably won’t hit the crazy 11 percent levels we saw in 2021, but the pressure is real. Grocery prices in Canada have already climbed about 33 percent over the past six years, according to StatsCan numbers. That’s a big jump for anyone trying to feed a family.
In that same talk he hit a line that has long sparked controversy. “Grocers cannot control prices,” Weston said, calling the idea that retailers set the final cost a false narrative full of fundamental untruths and lies. According to him, most of the pricing gets locked in much earlier in the supply chain, so stores have little power to change it at the shelf. Out of every $25 a shopper spends on groceries, the store only keeps about $1 as profit. That leaves almost no room to slash prices without hurting the business. He has repeated versions of this point for years, including during heated parliamentary hearings in 2023 when MPs grilled him and other grocery bosses over so-called greedflation. Food prices, he argued then, had risen 25 times faster than grocery profits.
Yet many Canadians and some official reports see a different problem: a serious lack of real competition. Loblaw, Empire (Sobeys), and Metro control a huge share of the grocery market. Critics say this oligopoly makes it easier for prices to stay high even when costs ease. A parliamentary committee that looked into the post-pandemic surge pointed to both supply-chain chaos and corporate concentration as key factors. Weston pushes back hard, claiming competition is fierce thanks to Walmart and Costco, but independent analysts and shoppers often disagree. The big three still set the tone for most of the country.
Price regulations have been another flashpoint. Canada has no strong government price controls on groceries. Instead, after years of pressure, the industry moved toward a voluntary Grocery Code of Conduct. Weston and Loblaw were slow to sign on, arguing early drafts could actually raise costs and prices through extra fees and disputes. They eventually joined after the 2024 boycott, but the code remains light-touch and industry-led rather than a hard regulatory tool. Opponents say without stricter rules or more competition, the big chains face little pressure to pass savings on to customers.
The controversies keep piling up. Back during the pandemic supply shock, Weston got labeled “the most hated person in Canada.” A Reddit group called “Loblaws Is Out of Control” blew up with tens of thousands of members. In May 2024 that online frustration turned into a real month-long boycott that dinged Loblaw’s sales. Then there is the bread scandal. Loblaw and its parent company admitted to taking part in an industry-wide scheme that fixed packaged bread prices from roughly 2001 to 2015. They self-reported it, got immunity from criminal charges, and in 2024 paid a record $500 million to settle class-action lawsuits. Weston apologized, saying the behaviour should never have happened. Plaintiffs claimed Canadians got overcharged by as much as $5 billion. That history fuels the view that limited competition and weak oversight let prices drift upward.
Recent trends show food inflation has cooled from its peak, but Weston is now flagging new risks from energy markets and weather patterns like El Niño. Loblaw has pushed hard into discount banners like No Frills and Maxi. The company keeps reporting solid profits overall, though it insists a big chunk comes from pharmacy and other non-food categories.
From the outside it looks like a classic tension. Weston runs a massive retailer that employs hundreds of thousands of people and keeps food on the shelves. At the same time, the limited number of major players and the absence of tough price regulations leave many shoppers feeling stuck. With fresh warnings about energy costs and his repeated claim that “grocers cannot control prices,” the debate over competition and oversight is not going away anytime soon. Canadians will keep watching the shelves, and Weston will keep defending the numbers.
