rawb

Pika, I'm going to call bullshit, when we went to a grocery store to buy Regi a cake

there were self-checkouts

Toronto does not apply to what I am saying

Toronto is a different place than the rest of Canada

also that is not what I am saying

ohhhhh

ok I re-read that

that makes more sense

I thought you were saying Canada didn't have self-checkouts

which would be wild

No, if anything we have a lot of them

they are very popular

since it is just objectively faster

I wonder if Canada is adopting the new US barcodes

I assume so

Mexico is

I have not noticed any change in our barcodes

whats the difference

you are

they're moving to QR codes

I've never seen a QR code one

I see, that makes sense then

I think 2027 is only mandatory for companies above a certain size, the full switchover deadline is 2029

the rules are annoying for packaging, everything will look messy for a couple years

Canadian packaging will be funny

since they are legally required to be dual french and english already anyways

Grocery stores have some of the lowest margins of all business types.

I am sure, also the Canadian grocery store monopolies post record profit year over year

So I don't care how thin the margins are

2% prior to the pandemic, 4% since. If they don't do something, they'll end up closing shop due to theft, spoilage, and damage.

Doesn't even beat inflation to own a grocery store.

Sure, but also loblaws makes record profits so I don't care

I can care about their plight when they are breaking even

That's record profits?

Yeah, their profit went up

They're up like 2.5% over 2.5+ years

so I don't care

Again you, as a store owner, might as well stay home and put your money in a savings account.

then they should

if you want to run a store, accept that the people who need to buy food will complain if you keep raising prices

Prices will improve when there's only one store in town, or better when the store is an hour away and you can't justify not leaving with a cart full.

All well and good, still don't care about the plight of loblaws

I wonder if this is the furthest left position you hold Pika

I doubt it

I do not think corperations are my friends in general, but I also was exagerating a bit for the sake of argument

Grocery prices don't affect me anyways since I only buy things at least 40% on sale, and I buy in bulk to further spend less per meal

i like the idea of pika looking at like cheap ground beef thats 10 dollars in disgust and buying the expensive ground beef thats 20 dollars but its 40% off so its inheretly the better choice to him

I buy with a "how many dollars per meal am I getting from this", so sadly, that does not occur

if the 10 dollar pack was a bad deal, I'd just get neither

I skip out on like 95% of the sales/marked down things I see because even on sale, the majority of things in a grocery store is a scam

That said, ground beef even not on sale is usually a better value than most foods, you end up spending under 2 dollars per meal using it

For people who think Pika is exaggerating, he's not, I've fact checked this he really does spend ~$2CAD per-meal

Its really not hard

usually closer to 3 though

I tried to do that once. I couldn't commit.

same, if I'm under $10/meal I'm impressed with myself

I do not care what i spend on food because i enjoy food

I meant more for when I'm making low-effort meals at home

I spent $30 on breakfast an hour ago, and it was good

and obviously if I'm actually cooking something nice, it's going to be higher

The USDA has a meal plan that's allegedly like $10 per day.

YouTube meal-prep slop is also somewhere around there

The meal kit companies I think are more like $18+

I think it's more per-day, most are $10-$11/meal, and then assume you add in a dollar or two extra to augment probably $20-$24/day

I think most of those kits aren't that bad of an option or anything, but idk if people are always really saving the time they think they are

They're all two-serving meals and advertise per serving prices

$8.99 per meal sounds better than $36 per week minimum.

is there one in particular that's cheaper? HelloFresh, Factor, and Tuvalu are all $10 at their cheapest per-serving

Home Chef has some down to $8.99

yeah ok, same ballpark

And they vary a lot in makeup. Some are super low calorie and 40+ grams of protein which is where I personally think they shine. Cheaper than a burger and more protein? Sign me up.

I'm sorta pricing that people would do 2 of those per-day, and then have some eggs, or fruit, or a granola bar or w/e they do for either breakfast or as a snack between meals

YouTube/TikTok mealprep nutjobs can get to Pika pricing if they really try, but most go for something that's at least borderline sustainable

I think $10 a day is probably sustainable without going full "beans and rice erry day" but it'd require discipline

I think the challenge is most meal-preppers are trying to hit protein macros or w/e too

which makes it hard to hit SUPER low prices unless you are buying taco-bell grade meat

doable, but yeah you need to comitt to that thrifty lifestyle

Just buy whole cows and pigs, then put the meat in a deep freezer