Loblaw chair Galen Weston says grocers ‘cannot control prices,’ jokes he was ‘traumatized’ by public outrage - Toronto Star
The chairman of Loblaw Companies said it's not true that grocers control prices during a talk at the Fairmont Royal York hotel Friday.
Chairman of Loblaw Companies Galen Weston arrives to speak at a Canadian Club event in Toronto, on Friday, Oct. 30, 2026.
Galen Weston says the “false narrative” that grocers control prices undermines the private sector’s ability to drive prosperity in Canada.
The chairman of Loblaw Companies Ltd. and CEO of George Weston Ltd. made the remark during a talk at the Fairmont Royal York hotel at a Canadian Club Toronto event, saying that the grocery industry’s reputation had been decimated during the period of high inflation following the pandemic, as grocers were assailed by “fundamental untruths” and “lies.”
“We do not, we cannot control prices,” Weston said. “Our industry enjoys no structural or regulatory protections that limit competition.”
Grocery inflation reached 11.4 per cent year-over-year in 2022, squeezing household budgets and fuelling public anger toward the country’s largest supermarket chains. Public unease over grocery bills culminated in a nationwide, consumer-led boycott of Loblaw stores in 2024.
The grocery tycoon argued Friday that grocers are the last stop in the value chain of the food system. He said food prices are largely driven by costs throughout the supply chain, from energy and fertilizer to transportation and agricultural production.
With grocers operating on thin profit margins — roughly $1 in profit for every $25 spent in a grocery basket, he said — retailers have limited ability to influence shelf prices, even though consumers hold them responsible for rising grocery bills.
Weston said he would never forget walking into a parliamentary committee room in Ottawa, where MPs had repeatedly grilled executives from Canada’s largest grocery chains over soaring food prices, corporate profits and transparency.
Someone from the media shouted, “Galen, how does it feel to be the most hated person in Canada?”
Weston said he had not realized he was viewed that way. He added that he had lived through “the swings of the very highs and the very lows of public sentiment” and jokingly said later he was “traumatized in some way by all of this a couple of years ago.”
The experience made him realize the grocery industry was operating under an umbrella of false narratives, and he felt compelled to correct the record.
Weston declined to speak to the Star about food inflation when approached after the event.
“We were not vocal enough in talking about the realities of what was going on, and I think we were afraid,” said Weston in an interview with Bloomberg on stage after his speech.
