Marilyn's Photos - Apr 18 2026 - Eat that Packaging like it's Meat
When I buy a whole chicken, there is always excess fat at the tail end. I often wonder how much extra profit happens when that fat that is intentionally left on the bird. And I am the one who has to remove it, so there's also labour involved.
A CBC article out of Halifax says that Sobeys and Loblaw are pricing their meat with the packaging included. That's known as underweight meat. doesn't that unrecyclable plastic seem so lightweight? Yet the CBC article found that it resulted in a 4.3% overcharge per item in that expose article.
And the highest overcharges reported in the article were at Farm Boy in Toronto. The chicken was in a clear plastic container. The container weighed 24 grams. The price of the chicken was $9.42 so being charged with the 24 grams of container, the result was 16.75% overcharge - $1.35 out of the total of $9.42. That's a lot of pure profit to me.
The grocery giants claim innocence due to things like they don't do the weighing in-store - it is done by the supplier. Fingers point in various directions with who is supposed to be inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for meeting standards.
There are fines with a maximum fine of $15,000. It isn't clear to me who will be fined. And take a quick calculation of that maximum fine - it doesn't seem like much to me compared to the thousands of containers of meat sold every day/week/year. And the CFIA says we are supposed to file a complaint when we experience this. I'll just go run out and buy a kitchen weigh-scale now and start my underweight meat tracking project.
Instead, I think I'll reminisce on the past: When I lived in Toronto, we shopped in Bloor West Village and our butcher was Ed who had a real butcher store. Things didn't come pre-packaged. We pointed to and picked out our chicken, it was weighed, and then wrapped in old-fashioned butcher paper. And so on.
One can reminisce on a picture of a tree-lined street like this. We would have walked along it 60 years ago. Pop out into the street and there might be a horse-drawn milk wagon delivering milk to your neighbour.
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