When customers buy meat at a grocery store, federal guidelines say they should only pay for the weight of that meat, and not the packaging it comes in.
But Vancouver law firm Mussio Goodman has filed a class action lawsuit against Loblaws, Sobeys and Walmart claiming they’re charging customers for the weight of the packaging, adding an extra five to 10 per cent to the cost.
“The lawsuit says that this is an intentional thing designed to get a couple bucks extra out of the consumer,” said Mussio Goodman associate Caleb Perry, who adds even if the overcharging wasn’t intentional – it was negligent.
“It’s been in the news for a long time, there’s been investigations. They knew it was a problem, but they didn’t take steps to fix it. And so, we would say they’ve just been recklessly blind, willfully blind to that problem,” he said.
While denying it was intentional, Walmart Canada admits it did happen at its Richmond Supercentre, where a third-party is responsible for packaging and weighing some products.
“The third party has confirmed that this was an isolated incident that was limited to select products in this single Richmond, B.C. store during a two-week period in December 2024. They immediately took corrective action once aware of the issue,” a statement to CTV News from the company said.
Sobeys and Loblaw did not respond to CTV’s request for comment.
Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University, said even if it was simply an issue with scale calibration, if customers were overcharged on meat, the stores are responsible.
“These stories are absolutely undermining consumer trust. And that’s a big issue right now,” Charlebois said. “There is a bit of a consumer trust crisis going on right now, and food inflation brought to bear many issues. And scaling is one of them.”
He points out Canadians did receive a payout from the bread price fixing scandal in 2017, which was estimated to have cost consumers $5 billion over 14 years.
“It may very well be that this issue may actually cost way more than $5 billion to Canadians,” said Charlebois. “Right now, the environment is a little different compared to a few years ago. Grocers are being watched very closely for everything.”
If the class action is certified, every Canadian who bought meat from one of those big chains could join.
“People who have been affected like this are going to reach out to us, and they’re going to say, ‘Yes, I have purchased meat. Yes, I do believe I was overcharged. It was in the time period where the action is certified.’ And they don’t have to bring receipts or proof, it’s going to be based on the evidence of what they say happened,” said Perry.
The three grocery store chains have yet to file statements of defence in the class action filing. It will be up to a judge to decide if the case can proceed.
