Non-dairy coffee milk in the news
The Gazette is on the story about the prices of non‑dairy milk options in cafés.
I still don’t get it. Where does the assumption come from that businesses must sell a product at a set price because you want them to? Nobody gave consumers the “right” to buy alternative ingredients at the same price as a more familiar ingredient.
Mark Côté 14:27 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Apparently the lawsuit is calling it an “abusive charge under the Quebec Consumer Protection Act”. I opened that Act and scanned quickly for “abusive” but didn’t find anything so must be a different specific legalese term… maybe H John can weigh in. 🙂
(Completely off topic, this blog always saves my name as “Mark Côté” so I have to rewrite it every time… something you can fix in WordPress maybe? My name is an interesting test case for many applications…)
Joey 14:39 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
That’s a pretty long article to not feature anyone making an actual case for lowering the price of non-dairy milk, aside from Sylvain Charlebois (about whom the less said the better, but it should be noted that this genius university prof didn’t even bother to distinguish between retail and wholesale prices, as we discussed ad nauseam here last time).
Blork not Côté 15:21 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
I agree with Kate. While I understand that paying more for alternative milks is annoying, I don’t see this as a LEGAL issue. Since when is it the government’s job to step in and set prices for retailers on everyday items like this? It annoys me that people so quickly jump to the legal/legistative way to resolve their annoyances, without thinking about what that says about the role of the law and of governments in our society. We’re not China (yet) so we shouldn’t act like we are.
Plant-based milks are a different product. The retailer can charge a different price if they want. Case closed.
To me it sounds like self-entitled children crying to their parents to solve their problems.
(BTW, adding “Côté” to my name here as a test to see if Mark’s problem happens with me too.)
Blork not Côté 15:22 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Follow-up on the Côté test. Problem does not happen with me. I’m using FF on a Mac. Mark, maybe the problem is your browser, or something in the settings?
Mark Côté 15:42 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Huh weird, it happens to me on multiple machines and multiple browsers. Thanks for testing it out for me; I’m even more confused now! 😀
Meezly 15:50 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
“Since when is it the government’s job to step in and set prices for retailers on everyday items like this?”
Extracts from some recent articles:
In 2024, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company George Weston Ltd. agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding their involvement in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread for over ten year span. The class-action case was brought against a group of companies that includes Loblaw and the Weston companies, Metro, Walmart Canada, Giant Tiger, and Sobeys and its owner, Empire Co. Ltd.
In June 2023, Canada Bread was fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing bread products under the Competition Act. The Competition Bureau called it the highest price-fixing fine ever imposed by a Canadian court.
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Earlier this month, CBC investigation uncovered grocers overcharging customers by selling underweighted meat. Under federal regulations, posted net weights for packaged food — and prices based on that weight — can’t include the packaging. Worried the problem could be widespread, a customer complained to the federal food regulator, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which alerted Loblaw.
CBC’s findings are no surprise to Terri Lee, who worked as a CFIA inspector for 24 years until her retirement in 2021. She said grocers need to better monitor their weighing systems, and the CFIA needs to do more in-store inspections.
“The cost of food has really increased,” Lee said. “It’s extremely important now to protect the consumer.”
bob 16:12 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
@Meezly – cartel pricing is not the same as setting a price according to the market. What Loblows et al. did (and continue to do) is to use their effective monopoly to steal from people. Charging a premium on a niche product is not in any way the same. A café setting prices is not at all the same as an industry cartel fixing prices. One is natural competition, the other is fraud. One affects some bougie latte-drinker’s price slightly, the other has an impact on whether poor people can eat. The moral difference is stark.
Meezly 17:15 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Is there really a moral difference or is it just one of degrees? These are not individual coffee shops we’re talking about, but major coffee chains like Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and Second Cup. As I had previously stated, plant-based milk is no longer a niche nor bougie product for precious snowflakes (as many of you seem to keep thinking despite the evidence saying otherwise) as it can account for 30-80% of sales depending on where you live. It is a valid alternative to dairy milk for health and environmental reasons and for those who are lactose-intolerant.
The difference is that plant-based milk historically was a niche product, which was why coffee chains charged a higher price. Fair enough, but this is no longer the case. The plant-based milk industry has grown exponentially in recent years and has even overtaken the dairy industry in some cases. So there is no longer any real reason to charge extra other than to continue making a profit at the customer’s expense.
Joey 17:24 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
@Meezly one is about sellers colluding to artificially inflate the price of bread, the other is about the price of a niche good not dropping fast enough, in the opinion of some – I don’t see how they are meaningfully comparable (also those evil major corps you mentioned have already stopped charging extra for non-dairy milk, so what are we even talking about? That the price of oat milk lattes two years ago was immorally high compared to dairy milk lattes, even if the difference was under a dollar?).
Government does set price caps all the time – e.g., pharmaceutical products, for which not only is the price set, but the related fees and uncharges for others throughout the supply chain. Your local pharmacist cannot set their dispensing fee at whatever amount they want, nor can their distributor charge more than a few percentage points for the cost of acquiring, storing and delivering your medication. Obviously, it’s. in the general interest to not allow the free market to run wild when it comes to essentials, like prescription drugs; I don’t think we can make the case that the same logic must apply – on moral/ethical grounds – to lattes.
Joey 17:26 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
But also, and most importantly, the article makes clear that the market is working here – it includes examples of large, medium and small coffee retailers opting to reduce or eliminate the surcharges for non-dairy milk, given that it’s less and less a niche product (with economies of scale coming on board throughout the manufacturing and supply chain). In other words, oat milk is more popular, it’s therefore getting cheaper for retailers to acquire, and they are in turn reducing their prices. Why would we want government policymakers or the courts to intervene when the desired outcome is already happening?
Tim S. 18:28 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
The lawsuit has certainly worked as a tactic for drawing attention to this issue, judging by the conversation here, even if it might not get far as a court case. If I were one of the people behind it, I would be very, very pleased right now.
Kate 20:27 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Mark Côté: You have a character encoding problem. Different browsers bury this stuff in different places, but you want to make sure French is selected as one of your language options, for starters.
MarcG 23:34 on 2025-01-17 Permalink
Mark, if you tell me what operating system and version, and which browser and version you’re using I can look into it.
Nous sommes toutes Côté 17:51 on 2025-01-20 Permalink
Ian here, testing
Sonoma 14.7.1
Chrome 129.0.6668.90 (Official Build) (arm64)
Côté
Wer mit Ungehuern kämpft mag zusehen daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird