Safeway Customers Being Ripped Off By Weight In Water In Meat
Published Date: February 9, 2014, 7:16 am | Updated: April 8, 2023, 11:50 pm
Calgary's Very Own
Consumer Fairness Desk
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Safeway Customers Being Ripped Off By Weight In Water In Meat?
We're all feeling the squeeze from food prices in Canada. We already pay a premium for goods and services sold in Canada. Many cross border corporations can make up to a 50% margin on goods and services sold in Canada. Canada Safeway happens to be one of them, but instead of just only charging more, customers say they are being sold water instead of chicken.
Canada Safeway customers have been complaining they are paying for nearly a half of a kilogram of ice when purchasing a frozen chicken package, that may sound like nothing, but that adds up. Customers took to the internet and social media websites to protest the selling of water labeled as meat. Canada Safeway customer Ben wrote "even Apple has more decency when it comes to mark up."
Price
Canada Safeway advertised the box of frozen chicken at $39 for a 4 kilogram box. That is $9.75 a kilogram. But after consumers thawed the ice out of the chicken, consumers had as much as half a kilogram of chicken mysteriously disappear. That's $5.00 of missing chicken per box, a single Canada Safeway store can easily sell thousands of boxes of frozen meat with ice in a month, netting a single Canada Safeway store an extra $15,000 if they only sold a measly 3000 boxes. According to Canada Safeway, they have over 220 stores in Canada. That's an extra $3,300,000 profit for selling non existent chicken, in a month, multiple that by 12 months, that is nearly $40 million dollars for Canada Safeway. Now my data is just a rough estimate from looking at average sales and from what the store manager told me.
How to avoid being ripped off at Canada Safeway?
While it's hard to avoid buying frozen water with chicken at Canada Safeway, we suggest:
- Avoid frozen chicken and purchase meats in the refrigerator over the freezer
- If buying refrigerated meat is not an option at Canada Safeway, ask for the store manager about the return policy if you find out you are being ripped a significant amount, asking to credit the difference.
Buyers should be aware that they pay more for a Canada Safeway frozen chicken car than for refrigerated chicken, but the higher price may be worth it for the extra water if they do not have a freezer at home.
Canada Safeway's Response:
"Contact our Corporate Brands Department directly, please call 1-888-723-3929"- I gave them a call, and they really had no idea for anything about Canadian matters.
Safeway Media Contact Department would not return my calls.