Isabel, a UBC student, walked into the Wesbrook Village Save-On-Foods this past summer to do what budget-conscious residents have done for years: get some better prices after price-matching her groceries.
Earlier, she had spotted cheaper broccoli on a flyer for Kin’s Farm Market – a B.C. produce chain which operates 23 stores across the province, including one on campus. While shopping at Save-On, she grabbed three heads of broccoli, brought the flyer to the register expecting to get the match after showing the price at Kin’s.
But the cashier had some news: Save-On-Foods’ price match list had been updated, and Kin’s was no longer on it.
Then came a second surprise. The Wesbrook Save-On location would now only honour five price matches per customer, per day. Isabel’s three heads of broccoli had already eaten through 60 per cent of daily quota, leaving her just two more matches for everything else in her cart.
Who’s on the list, who’s not
A handwritten sign taped to the register spells out the competitors Save-On will accept: Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore, Walmart, Shoppers Drug Mart, No Frills, FreshCo, Safeway, IGA, T&T, Thrifty Foods, and London Drugs.
Look closer, and they’re all large corporate players. Loblaws, Superstore, No Frills, Shoppers, and T&T belong to Loblaw Companies, which is controlled by George Weston Limited. Safeway, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, and IGA fall under Sobeys’ parent company, Empire Company Limited.
What you won’t find on the list are independent grocers, local produce markets, co-ops, or online retailers. A family-run chain like Kin’s, which has been selling fresh produce across the Lower Mainland for over forty years, didn’t make the cut. For a campus resident without a car, the choice is blunt: pay more at Save-On or find the time to shop elsewhere to find bargains.
What the policy says, and what It doesn’t
Save-On’s corporate website lists transparency among its core values. Its “We Match” page still promises to match “any competitor within our geographical trade area,” though the fine print reveals that they can decide, store by store, who qualifies as a competitor.
The five-item daily cap is another story. It doesn’t appear on the website, nor does it appear to be posted anywhere inside the store. Presumably, most customers will find out only at the checkout counter, verbally informed by the cashiers after they’ve already finished shopping.
For a company that claims to value transparency, how does a significant restriction end up as a surprise conversation at the till?
Who owns what
Save-On is owned by Pattison Food Group, a subsidiary of the Jim Pattison Group. Pattison Food Group owns more than a dozen banners across Western Canada: Save-On- Foods, Buy-Low Foods, Quality Foods, Choices Markets, Urban Fare, Nesters Market, PriceSmart Foods, Nature’s Fare Markets, and Meinhardt Fine Foods, among others. The group also operates Everything Wine and Pure Integrative Pharmacy.
That’s a lot of brands under one roof. And Pattison is just one piece of a much bigger picture. Across the country, five major retail groups — Loblaw, Empire (Sobeys’ parent), Metro, Walmart, and Costco — control roughly 75 per cent of Canada’s grocery sales.
According to a report released earlier this year from Oxfam, the Pattison group saw profit growth of more than 14 per cent. Economists have noted that Canadian grocery sector profits have more than doubled since the pandemic, reaching record highs in 2023.
Some of the companies on Wesbrook Save-On’s price match list have a documented history of coordinating on pricing. The bread price-fixing scandal saw major grocery chains collude for more than fourteen years to inflate the price of packaged bread. Canada Bread Co. pleaded guilty and was fined $50 million, the highest price-fixing fine ever imposed by a Canadian court. Loblaw and its parent company agreed to a $500-million class-action settlement.
The Competition Bureau’s investigation named Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart, and Giant Tiger, and settlement cheques of up to $49.11 only started reaching Canadians this spring – an amount that’s roughly what a family spends on bread in a single month at current prices according to some estimates.
So when Save-On’s policy restricts its price matching program to some the very retailers that have been caught fixing prices, it’s fair to ask if customers are being offered a real competitive price check, or just making a comparison among corporate friends?
The cost of dependency
The Wesbrook Village Save-On is a 32,000-square-foot anchor tenant and currently the only full-service grocery store within walking distance for tens of thousands of UBC residents.
Price matching used to help make up for that lack of competition. Residents would use apps like Flipp to find lower prices elsewhere and have them honoured at the register. This has been an effective way residents in the university neighbourhoods benefit from a competitive market without actually having to leave campus. With that flexibility quietly narrowed, the rules can change without warning, and there’s nowhere else within easy reach for customers who don’t have access to cars.
That said, Save-On remains one of the few Canadian grocery chains that still offers price matching at all. When Walmart Canada dropped the practice in 2020, others followed. If Save-On does away with its price match program, do residents have any recourse? And what leverage would residents have with a company benefiting from its position as the only grocery store on campus?
What comes next
Residents have raised the issue of lack of competition before. During consultations for the updated Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood Plan, community members told UBC planners they wanted a second, more affordable grocery option, with some specifically asking for a store that reflects the neighbourhood’s demographics, such as an Asian grocer.
The UNA Board reinforced the point in a letter to UBC’s Board of Governors, writing that residents strongly favour a discount grocery option in Wesbrook South. The updated plan includes 30,000 square feet of commercial space that could potentially house one.
Additionally, a new building currently under construction just north of the recently renamed MacIsaac Health Building in the centre of campus includes retail space for a grocery store. While details are scarce, UBC officials told The Campus Resident discussions are underway with potential tenants.
Outside of campus, there are indicators that governments are listening to calls for cheaper groceries.
In June, the federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a $3.2-billion National Food Security Strategy that aims to lower grocery prices for Canadians. The plan includes $1 billion that’s expected to fund new and expanded regional food hubs that could give independent grocers wholesale access outside the major chains.
Independent retailers with local roots are the kind of grocers a planned university community might want to welcome.
For now, more commercial space for a second campus grocery store is just a plan on paper. And Isabel is still shopping at the only store she can walk to, limited to five price matches and a handwritten sign that displays a limited list of competitors she can compare prices with.
JENNIFER CHEN IS A MEMBER OF THE CAMPUS RESIDENT NEWSPAPER COMMITTEE.