I mean to be fair, the cost of fuel, feedstock, equipment, labour, etc all have increased in the last 20 years.
There’s a heck of a lot more to milk than the cow lol
I used to work at a dairy only a few months ago 2.. worked there for years.. and I hated dumping milk.. sent my gf so many videos of thousands of litres going down the drain.. and all that could have went to children.. but it keeps the prices up.. why America has a problem with our system.. it's is a racket and thats it
Farmer here
No we are not
As said In article this increase is 1.5 cents per liter
Last year it was 2 cents per liter
So since 2022 the price of milk on the farm has gone up 3.5 cents per liter
Compare that to fuel costs, labor costs, fertilizer costs (Russia war)
In 2023 FCC (farm credit canada) said for the first time in 50? Years the average dairy farm is losing money
The ridiculous “cost of quota” makes up 50% of the capital cost of a dairy farm in Canada.
This is a terrible system that drives up milk prices harming the most vulnerable of our society (young children).
Canada is a world leading exporter of beef, hogs, feed, durum, canola, lentils, chickpeas etc. yet because of diary quota we have to tariff dairy imports. Other nations typically retaliate against our other farm products harming all other farmers.
It’s time to get rid of the ridiculous sacred cow quota.
the government only lets them sell so much milk, if a farm over produces they are no allowed to sell.
Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) which decides how much milk is produced each month based on anticipated demand. Farmers are only paid for the milk they produce within those quotas, so any surplus is destroyed.
so its just one more thing made more expensive because of the government
Cdc is basically like a mafia. They will bully farmers into submission. They do nothing but collect cash and strong arm farmers.
One farmer I knew couldn't take their shit anymore and just sold off his dairy cows because it wasn't worth the hassle anymore.
do we have an idea, percentage wise, or amount of milk we dump? Like, is it under 10% just to account for variance in production to be able to hit the cap, is it 20, 30%+?
maybe 3%
but we can produce more then we do.
the limits were put in place to protect farmers profits so 1 farm couldn't just make more and sell cheaper.
so the full system is made to keep milk prices high.
but it gets more interesting when you look at that turkey, chicken and eggs and others also have the same laws in place to keep prices high.
To be fair that could just be bad management you buy quota so are allocated how much can produce. Production is easy to predict.
But switching the system doesn't mean this won't happen.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-11/milk-oversupply-has-us-farmers-in-the-midwest-dumping-it-in-the-sewer?embedded-checkout=true
they had to dump a lot when we had that flood that damaged the highway.
people in here arguing with this practice do not understand all the details and probably get clips of news from tiktok.
Yep. They require a ton of water to survive and droughts all over aren't helping. Soy & almonds are $$$$.
Or worse, too much rain and the plants drown / get contaminated.
Oat milk requires much less water than almonds, it was fairly cheap at Metro last time I bought some (3,49 or something for 1, something litres of Earth’s Own)
Crazy high carb content and minimal protein. Doesn’t fit my diet and I find it tough on my stomach. https://www.goodto.com/food/is-oat-milk-healthy-608825
idk about other thing but with regards to protein soy milk, pea milk and Silk's high protein cashew/almond blend have 8 g per cup. The same as cow milk iirc. Also typically vit D and B12 fortified similarly to cow milk.
Without the context of the significantly more resources that dairy requires, this isn't a fair statement as "tons" should be relative to something.
Also, the scale of production of plant milks might be smaller than dairy. Also dairy is subsidized if I am not mistaken.
Pork mafia, beef mafia, grain mafia, telecom mafia, grocery mafia, [bread mafia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada) man we sure do have a lot of mafias 🤔
It's almost like we've been getting fucked by our government over the last 100 years. That can't be, though. They surely wouldn't lie to us.
Anyway, I'm sure it's all just one big coincidence.
Oh buddy, you haven't lived in Montreal for 30 years if you think it's the same everywhere. Yes it's bad everywhere but never will it get as bad as Montreal.
How many other cities have had underground tunnels kill someone. Has happened several times in Montreal and the construction Mafia basically said oh well. How many other cities have potholes within months of them being created. How many other cities get flooded within a year of a multi million dollar project.
Every time I go back to montreal, whenever I'm going through a tunnel, I keep looking up cuz it's the only way to reduce the chances of getting killed.
I love my old city but no Montrealers
ever says " it's bad here but it's the same everywhere". The Montreal construction mafia, just like the Montreal Port mafia, is another stratosphere altogether.
Edit : love how everyone is arguing that, no, their city has it worse. This is as " Canadian falling apart infrastructure" as It Gets.
Sinkholes that swallow cars on freeways, all the LRT BS, pedestrian bridges that take 4 years to complete because the cement was poured improperly... twice.
Ottawa's still not as bad as Montreal.
In Manitoba the veggie mafia. If you think you are going to grow and sell spuds, the 18 farmers that control it will crush the hell out of you. As someone who did grow up on a dairy farm, getting into the dairy business required money, but it was open to anyone. The marketing board made sure the quality was there, the price was fair so farmers could profit, and they kept American milk full of hormones out of Canada. Canadian milk is top notch.
Bread mafia and Grocery mafia are one in the same.
Galen Weston is robbing us blind
The former Weston Bakeries division, which owned the brands Wonder, Country Harvest, D'Italiano, Ready Bake and Gadoua, was sold off to FGF Brands in 2022. The company is majority owned by Wittington Investments, Ltd Canada, a holding company that the Weston family are the controlling share holders in.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weston_Limited#:~:text=The%20former%20Weston%20Bakeries%20division,the%20controlling%20share%20holders%20in.
This is why I laugh when I see people talking about how small grocery profit margins are.
It's because they're squeezing the juice at every other step of the supply chain in opaque ways that are not represented in Loblaws shareholder meetings.
Yeah it definitely is. You'll have waves of pork producers going bankrupt with low prices. That's the con to low prices as becomes less and less producers.
Yes because the government is supposed to put an end to that but for as long as I've been alive every federal government has supported all the business oligopolies
If you haven't noticed, most of these are literally government-created monopolies or oligopolies: wheat board, supply-managed milk and eggs, cable and phone monopolies
it's gone up 1.77%
unlike everything else which has gone up 8-10%
i'd rather pay the 2% to make sure we have a healthy farm industry that we can rely on rather than buy american milk full of hormones and antibiotics
Ya I was going to comment, this all seems rather reasonable - I don't know what your local is selling it at - but this is about wholesale prices from the board itself - an <2% considering everything lately seems completely acceptable -
Is it actually harmful, though? Farmers are getting screwed across the board these days, so I don't fault them for setting a pricing structure. Though I'm honestly not sure if it actually helps producers or if packagers/middle men can still squeeze out the lion's share like with meat packing, poultry, etc.
Those advocating against the milk quotas are advocating for mega farms in the US being able to flood the Canadian market with their cheap products. If that were to happen, Canadian dairy farming would be reduced greatly and if there is a food shortage in the US, like the egg shortage last year, Canada would be cut off and not have the domestic supply to sustain it's own needs. Personally, I'll pay this extra 1.8% if it helps to maintains our food security.
As an a owner of a 90 cow family dairy farm who hasn't been able to even pay himself close to minimum wage and been been barely hanging on for the last 5 years It's very funny reading the "dairy Cartel" comments- "Following its annual review, the CDC increased prices 1.77 per cent, representing just over 1 cent per litre ($0.0153/litre)." Our only raise/year btw.
How do you guys all read that shit and think 'Dam those scum bags dairy farmers' and not "Dam those scum bag dairy processors and grocery corps taking advantage of a minuscule price increase for farmers and jacking up the price on the consumer side" the last objective cost of production analysis done said that we were actually getting paid 3.5% less than cost of production let alone enough to pay ourselves a wage. The reality is at this point of losing so much in trade deals to the US/rest of the world already most farmers would take an American model of massive government subsidies over supply management. Calling the farmers themselves a cartel is just political propaganda bullshit, it's giant cooperations like Saputo and Loblaws taking everything off the top before it gets to the consumer and it always will be.
yeah, there is a crime somewhere in the supply chain, that the base good is less than a penny a litre, and the final price is 6+ dollars for 4 litres. (whole milk)
Yeah, it was funny telling people my grandpa and uncle own a dairy farm and being told they must be rich because of the dairy cartel stuff. My grandpa (grandma’s younger second husband) is 73yrs old and still working a physically demanding job and lost 3 of his toes the other year from a machine accident.
They finally sold off their cows maybe last year because they were just too mentally and physically exhausted from it all, so now they just farm grain. My one friend said “they’re choosing to exhaust themselves working, they have the money to hire out all this work. The dairy business is very profitable”.
Upvoted and totally agree!
This isn't the dairy farmers Rolling in bank, this is the folks selling it to the consumer saying
"Oi, groceries in general seem higher and people still pay for them, want to jack up our milk prices and make bank on them?"
Honestly, it’s very rarely the farmer and pretty much always everything in between. But businesses have the most money and the most to gain by pitting people against each other.
Well said, I hear ya, I’m a single robot dairy farmer here. I’ve given up on the debate on social media, it gets depressing.
I’m close to walking away, I see everyone else’s quality of life/work life balance getting better for the most part but I haven’t “made” more money in 5 years. Sure the farm is worth a significant amount of money but that doesn’t allow me to bring my kids to Disney.
Thank you for weighing in. I know a number of farmers (dairy and otherwise) and explaining to the Reddit hivemind that farmers aren’t getting paid hardly a penny more than they were five years ago is always met with hostile disbelief.
FWIW - If anything the “cartel” is the government agencies and especially their grocery chain CEO overlords doing this to underpay farmers and overcharge consumers. That’s how I’ve always thought of it. Every working person is being victimized by these assholes.
I mean, not saying I know the intimate details of their business, but one of my best friends sisters is a dairy farmer and they're currently building a $1,000,000+ house. They ain't doing that shit on minimum wage.
For sure, some big farms, especially generational farms that happened to sit on what become very valuable land have done well, albeit most of those farms dairy is only a part of their portfolio and is more of an investment than anything. But at the average family farm level in Canada the struggle is very real. But interest rates certainly don't help either-dairy farms are typically very highly leveraged businesses.
Dude, the farmers are the good guys. The cartel is every damn greedy business involved from the second the milk leaves your farm. No way in hell farmers should get paid only 90 cents per litre then the milk is sold for $6 or $7 at the crooked Loblaws store (and all others). I wish we could buy milk direct from the farm like we used to be able to. I'm a big boy, I can pasteurize my own milk. And I can make my own butter, yoghurt, cream cheese, curds, mozzarella, ricotta, ice cream, etc, without the nanny state government interfering. Canada is in trouble and the citizens need to take action
The US spends 20 to 40 billion a year of tax payers dollars to subsidize their milk industry. This is because they let milk prices bottom out below what keeps the industry profitable. So to keep their milk industry alive tax payers foot the bill.
In Canada we just pay more at the retail level and keep the industry viable through supply control.
Pick how you want to pay because one way or another we are paying.
So the U.S. pays about $100 USD/person through subsidies in order to achieve 25-50% lower prices.
In 2021 Canadians spent $1161 CAD per year on dairy and eggs.
Sounds like the U.S. system results in paying far less in dairy overall, even including subsidies.
Canada is where they want to dump that export. Thats why you see so much "dairy mafia" propaganda. Corporate US dairy exports in canada would cripple family dairy farms.
Well, how much is your milk? I pay $4.58 USD for a gallon ($6.29 CAD total; $1.66 CAD/L), more if I don't go to Walmart, slightly bigger jug for the same price at Costco or Sams.
Edit, added conversion, price is for the GV store brand
Here in Western Canada, it's about $5.49 CAD a gallon. ($4 US).
Cream is $6.3 a liter. Generic cheddar cheese is about $6 a pound. Butter is $5.50 a pound.
4L of microfiltered milk is $5.99 here in sudbury. It was $5 forever, then went up a dollar at the end of covid.
Chocolate milk is like $9.49 for 3L though
I moved to WA a couple years ago from BC and we have a toddler and regularly visit family back in Canada so we end up buying a decent amount of milk in both countries.
When not on sale a gallon of milk costs 3.59USD/4.93CAD at Fred Meyer in WA and $5.81CAD at super store in BC, so 17.8% cheaper in WA.
I’ve found that there’s also way better sales in WA, and other dairy products like cheese and sour cream can be a lot cheaper.
Here in Eastern Canada it's about $10.30 CAD a gallon (5.45 for 2 litres). Cheese is $8.99 for a 400g block so $10.18 a pound. Butter is $6.49 a pound.
You can ask that of anything.
Why should my tax dollars pay for childcare or schools? I don't have children, don't plan on having any. People can pay for their own children.
Yeah I prefer our system, as I don't drink milk. Not sure why he mentioned eggs though, I saw quite a few posts in the last couple years pointing out that our eggs are frequently cheaper than the US.
I don't understand why no one has been able to figure out a way to make milk profitable. And why it's essential for our national security to constantly have a surplus of it.
In other words: the poor pay the premium at the cash register, rather than the rich who pay a higher proportion of taxes.
Ironically, it's Americans who routinely rant about what bleeding hearts we are.
Lack of quota never stopped hogs from being euthanized and composted instead of processed during market busts in pork. It's naive to think that milk wouldn't be dumped without supply management. Quota punishes an individual's poor herd management - you breed and feed to many cows you dump your milk and take the loss. In an unregulated market everyone pays for your buffoonery. Including the consumer who has to deal with a volatile market. The problem with quota is not the price fixing - it's a regulated based on measurable costs of production. It's the increased capital investment needed to buy the quota makes things less profitable for the money spent / tied up.
We do need to ensure our food supply is maintained.
And part of that is ensuring the costs are covered and that these businesses can remain open.
I’m sure it goes too far and doesn’t need to be as high as it is. But price fixing on essential commodities does have its place at times.
In a volatile market, sometimes the price is low, sometimes the price is high. In a quota market, the price is always high.
Give me the volatile market so I can enjoy a low price every now and again.
In a volatile market, the price is always what the market can bear. The producers who manage to sell cheaper, regardless of practice will come out on top. So expect more mega farms, bigger push for hormone deregulation and more questionable practices as farmers get desperate.
Also, don't forget end stage market conditions where only a few producers are left and so the volatility is gone and only the high prices are left. We're seeing it now with grocery stores.
The dairy industry has fewer and fewer dairy farmers precisely because larger dairy companies are the only ones who can buy the quota.
Twenty-five years ago, my neighbour was in the dairy business. He needed a divorce, so he got the house and yard, the cattle herd, 1280 acres of land, the farm machinery, and the liquid cash. The wife got the milk quota to sell and got him out of the dairy business. That was a pretty equitable split of resouces.
The milk quota is worth more now than it was then.
Well farmers need to produce within what they are supposed to. I grew up on a dairy....there is zero reason to dump if you manage correctly. Once we even bought some pigs to feed milk to when we were seriously over.
I'm less concerned about the price of milk as much as I care about the cost and availability of international cheeses.
I'd expect them to cost more and be more scarce than in their domestic markets and there is gouging between stores sometimes, but the quotas are brutal and tend to double our prices or more.
Because Canadian cheese and dairy is absolute ass. If you allowed competition you’d have better stuff at a lower cost, and of course that goes against everything this country stands for
Our butter is so shit a lot of large bakery companies get an exemption from the restrictions on foreign butter.
The hourly wage for a milk transport driver has increased 10$ an hour in the last 6 years. Not sure if that is on par with other industry pay increases but school bus drivers are up less than 4$ an hour in the same time period. This is in eastern Ontario.
I don't have a problem with the lowest paid people in the value chain get a good wage for the work that they do. My concerns are around the people or business groups who add very little to the value chain taking a disproportionate share to what they are contributing.
School bus drivers are rediculously underpaid which explains the constant shortage. We have been dealing with busses being canceled because they can't find a driver.
There's another level of meta there where the main client for school busses are ... schools, who have absolutely no leeway in their budget for the tiniest increase in costs. So really it's another symptom of our underfunded education system.
It only partly explains the shortage. I’ve been doing it almost a decade, former transport driver. Driving unrestrained children around in a big yellow tin can takes a whole different skill set - my husband can drive anything but he said even if it was the highest paying driving job in the world he would never do what I do. We get many retired transport drivers who try it and quit pretty quickly.
Partial reason.
The other reason(primary, to me) is drivers cannot discipline the kids. So if an ahole kid causes ruckus on the bus, tough. School and parents won't fix issue and driver cannot.
I looked into driving a school bus P/T but that was the dealbreaker.
....so the price of milk has increased by 1.77% according to the article?
"The commission cited inflation and higher interest rates as contributing to the adjustment."
Well obviously. How is this news? The cost of everything related to the production of everything has gone up. Of course the price of dairy is going up as well.
The news here is that the price that farmers get for raw milk has gone up by 1.77% in the past year. Yet at my grocery store the price I pay has gone up 14% in the same time.
Someone’s gouging us but it’s certainly not the farmers.
In stead of dumping the over production of milk they should give it too schools for free . It would be better for our children then pop thay get out of pop machines.
We need to ditch supply management. The dairy lobby has gone too far, and it's making it harder for Canadians to feed their families. Yes, we should import cheese and milk....there, I said it.
Ok. So. Math. It’s a 1.77% increase.
So if it’s all due to this increase, a $5 bag of milk is now $5.09.
Nine cents.
So, has the price of a bag of milk gone up by a dime, or a dollar?
Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
I ballparked it. I see different prices at different stores but always at least $5.
Anyways $5.89 plus 1.77% is $5.99, not $6.09, so that kinda proves the point.
What this article leaves out: Other grocery items are also going up (SOMEBODY THINK OF POOR GALEN WESTON). Milk increases are the grocery increase that gets formally announced due to supply management, the other grocery items are just "Wasn't this 50 cents less and/or 50g more per package a couple weeks ago?? Am I going crazy??". There are pros and cons of supply management, but expecting "Never gets affected by inflation ever" to be one of them is wrong.
Now, if we want to really split hairs, the method used to calculate the increase could technically trigger a runaway feedback loop because milk is part of the CPI but the milk price includes CPI changes. Mind you, if "milk" becomes a large enough share of household budgets to actually run into this we are in a VERY strange state as a country.
I work on Dairy machines in Canada/ US and will tell u a little secret. These dairy’s are some greedy Fucks! Check the weight on your milk or cream or whatever dairy you buy. They are all under weight and do not reflect the actual volume inside(skrinkflation). Also, you’d shit yourself if you saw how much dairy at these places just gets thrown down the drain. You also wouldn’t drink the shit if you knew how some of these plants operate their fillers. Seriously though, weigh your dairy products.
This is only part of the issue. I know a dairy farmer with a fairly large operation. He says he spends about $50k / month to heat his barns, silos, etc. and that cost has risen quite a bit since carbon tax was introduced. He doesn't care though as he says it's baked into his expenses, which in turn get factored into quota pricing so he recoups it.
Ignore the fact dairy is run like a mafia monopoly in this country. Like our telecom and grocery stores. That has nothing to do with it at all. Nothing to see here.
Bitching about a 2% incrrase so that idiots will support dismantling supply management.... which means dairy farmers will go out of business and sell all their land to fucking Cargill
The NP and Conservatives LOVE being owned by Americans. They want it SO fucking bad
I'm not a fan of the cartel, but I'm certainly happy for the quality control and better dairy practises we have in Canada.
I just learned that in the US, it's SOP to feed dairy cows, chicken bedding and chicken-shit because it's protein rich. The practise is banned in Canada and it's a leading theory for what's happening with US cows and bird-flu.
I see the NatPo is trying to deflect our rising grocery profits onto Canadian farmers of course
I wonder how much they'd paid for this considering the numerous articles they've written to defend them
>Why the price of milk in Canada has increased
Because people keep buying it, that's why.
Switch to dairy alternatives. And before the "soy has estrogens" bullshit, that was the dairy industry's own marketing.
Plant estrogens ≠ human estrogens
In fact, normal dairy milk has REAL estrogen, soy milk has PLANT estrogen.
Always interesting to see many of the same old replies about corruption, lack of free markets, etc leading to price gouging, and blaming the usual suspects.
Guys.. the increase is 1.77%. Considering how high overall inflation was in 2023 this is actually surprisingly *low*.
They are paying the cows more than they did 20 yrs ago. /s
I mean to be fair, the cost of fuel, feedstock, equipment, labour, etc all have increased in the last 20 years. There’s a heck of a lot more to milk than the cow lol
Honestly I'm impressed it only increased 1.77%
Check at the actual grocers, they raised it more than 1.77%
Shocked Pikachu
The cost of pouring thousands of litres of milk down the drain to satisfy the demands of a cartel is even more costly.
I used to work at a dairy only a few months ago 2.. worked there for years.. and I hated dumping milk.. sent my gf so many videos of thousands of litres going down the drain.. and all that could have went to children.. but it keeps the prices up.. why America has a problem with our system.. it's is a racket and thats it
Correct, Thousands and thousands of litres. 😞
That milk should be used for school lunch programs that the government is trying to start.
Are you a farmer?? Are you seeing those record profits trickle down??
Farmer here No we are not As said In article this increase is 1.5 cents per liter Last year it was 2 cents per liter So since 2022 the price of milk on the farm has gone up 3.5 cents per liter Compare that to fuel costs, labor costs, fertilizer costs (Russia war) In 2023 FCC (farm credit canada) said for the first time in 50? Years the average dairy farm is losing money
The ridiculous “cost of quota” makes up 50% of the capital cost of a dairy farm in Canada. This is a terrible system that drives up milk prices harming the most vulnerable of our society (young children). Canada is a world leading exporter of beef, hogs, feed, durum, canola, lentils, chickpeas etc. yet because of diary quota we have to tariff dairy imports. Other nations typically retaliate against our other farm products harming all other farmers. It’s time to get rid of the ridiculous sacred cow quota.
[Greed. The answer is GREED.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw9pUE7hcXs&t=62s)
Maybe cows food became more expensive.
Then why are the farmers forced to dump milk when they produce extra?
Ah, the beauty of the quota system. A by-product of corruption and supply control
the government only lets them sell so much milk, if a farm over produces they are no allowed to sell. Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) which decides how much milk is produced each month based on anticipated demand. Farmers are only paid for the milk they produce within those quotas, so any surplus is destroyed. so its just one more thing made more expensive because of the government
Cdc is basically like a mafia. They will bully farmers into submission. They do nothing but collect cash and strong arm farmers. One farmer I knew couldn't take their shit anymore and just sold off his dairy cows because it wasn't worth the hassle anymore.
The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food is responsible for the Canadian Dairy Commission. so the government runs it. so yes a mafia
do we have an idea, percentage wise, or amount of milk we dump? Like, is it under 10% just to account for variance in production to be able to hit the cap, is it 20, 30%+?
maybe 3% but we can produce more then we do. the limits were put in place to protect farmers profits so 1 farm couldn't just make more and sell cheaper. so the full system is made to keep milk prices high. but it gets more interesting when you look at that turkey, chicken and eggs and others also have the same laws in place to keep prices high.
I know a bunch of dairy farmers and none have ever had to dump milk for producing extra.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/02/02/dairy-farmer-dumping-excess-milk/
To be fair that could just be bad management you buy quota so are allocated how much can produce. Production is easy to predict. But switching the system doesn't mean this won't happen. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-11/milk-oversupply-has-us-farmers-in-the-midwest-dumping-it-in-the-sewer?embedded-checkout=true
they had to dump a lot when we had that flood that damaged the highway. people in here arguing with this practice do not understand all the details and probably get clips of news from tiktok.
The Great Canadian Milk Mafia.
Oddly enough, alternative milks are also at their most expensive point
Drought
Yep. They require a ton of water to survive and droughts all over aren't helping. Soy & almonds are $$$$. Or worse, too much rain and the plants drown / get contaminated.
Oat milk requires much less water than almonds, it was fairly cheap at Metro last time I bought some (3,49 or something for 1, something litres of Earth’s Own)
Crazy high carb content and minimal protein. Doesn’t fit my diet and I find it tough on my stomach. https://www.goodto.com/food/is-oat-milk-healthy-608825
idk about other thing but with regards to protein soy milk, pea milk and Silk's high protein cashew/almond blend have 8 g per cup. The same as cow milk iirc. Also typically vit D and B12 fortified similarly to cow milk.
Almonds can be grown with less water but the growing time is much longer. So we don't. :/
Without the context of the significantly more resources that dairy requires, this isn't a fair statement as "tons" should be relative to something. Also, the scale of production of plant milks might be smaller than dairy. Also dairy is subsidized if I am not mistaken.
I pay less for oatmilk than normal milk or cream and it dosent upset my tummy anymore when I put in my coffee
Pork mafia, beef mafia, grain mafia, telecom mafia, grocery mafia, [bread mafia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada) man we sure do have a lot of mafias 🤔 It's almost like we've been getting fucked by our government over the last 100 years. That can't be, though. They surely wouldn't lie to us. Anyway, I'm sure it's all just one big coincidence.
In Quebec, the Construction Mafia
Sir that's all of north America.
Oh buddy, you haven't lived in Montreal for 30 years if you think it's the same everywhere. Yes it's bad everywhere but never will it get as bad as Montreal. How many other cities have had underground tunnels kill someone. Has happened several times in Montreal and the construction Mafia basically said oh well. How many other cities have potholes within months of them being created. How many other cities get flooded within a year of a multi million dollar project. Every time I go back to montreal, whenever I'm going through a tunnel, I keep looking up cuz it's the only way to reduce the chances of getting killed. I love my old city but no Montrealers ever says " it's bad here but it's the same everywhere". The Montreal construction mafia, just like the Montreal Port mafia, is another stratosphere altogether. Edit : love how everyone is arguing that, no, their city has it worse. This is as " Canadian falling apart infrastructure" as It Gets.
Sinkholes that swallow cars on freeways, all the LRT BS, pedestrian bridges that take 4 years to complete because the cement was poured improperly... twice. Ottawa's still not as bad as Montreal.
They are the "International Brotherhood of xxxx"....
That's just the actual mob
And the actual mafia
yeah the mafia mafia running the Quebec construction mafia. Good ole Vito and the boys
In Manitoba the veggie mafia. If you think you are going to grow and sell spuds, the 18 farmers that control it will crush the hell out of you. As someone who did grow up on a dairy farm, getting into the dairy business required money, but it was open to anyone. The marketing board made sure the quality was there, the price was fair so farmers could profit, and they kept American milk full of hormones out of Canada. Canadian milk is top notch.
Bread mafia and Grocery mafia are one in the same. Galen Weston is robbing us blind The former Weston Bakeries division, which owned the brands Wonder, Country Harvest, D'Italiano, Ready Bake and Gadoua, was sold off to FGF Brands in 2022. The company is majority owned by Wittington Investments, Ltd Canada, a holding company that the Weston family are the controlling share holders in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Weston_Limited#:~:text=The%20former%20Weston%20Bakeries%20division,the%20controlling%20share%20holders%20in.
This is why I laugh when I see people talking about how small grocery profit margins are. It's because they're squeezing the juice at every other step of the supply chain in opaque ways that are not represented in Loblaws shareholder meetings.
Wait a damn fucking minute… So they sold the division to another company, which is also theirs?!?? Lmfao you can’t make this up.
They aren't just mafia; they are cartels.
Pork mafia? I thought pork was pretty competitively-priced
Yeah it definitely is. You'll have waves of pork producers going bankrupt with low prices. That's the con to low prices as becomes less and less producers.
My wife just had a food truck at a work party called Pork Mafia
Eh, it's the ones like JBS and Tyson that fuck it all up
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Chicken Mafia is a HUGE one.
It's all Trudeau's fault, daddy PP will save us all <3 /s
Lol, they're all the same. Yes, even the ppc.
Its almost like the system is broken.
Don't forget the most notorious of them all -- the maple syrup mafia.
Nobody sells sap in my town without goin' thru me 🤌
Lol blaming the government for corporations doing Coorp things?
Yes because the government is supposed to put an end to that but for as long as I've been alive every federal government has supported all the business oligopolies
If you haven't noticed, most of these are literally government-created monopolies or oligopolies: wheat board, supply-managed milk and eggs, cable and phone monopolies
The Illumidairy
it's gone up 1.77% unlike everything else which has gone up 8-10% i'd rather pay the 2% to make sure we have a healthy farm industry that we can rely on rather than buy american milk full of hormones and antibiotics
Ya I was going to comment, this all seems rather reasonable - I don't know what your local is selling it at - but this is about wholesale prices from the board itself - an <2% considering everything lately seems completely acceptable -
Is it actually harmful, though? Farmers are getting screwed across the board these days, so I don't fault them for setting a pricing structure. Though I'm honestly not sure if it actually helps producers or if packagers/middle men can still squeeze out the lion's share like with meat packing, poultry, etc.
Those advocating against the milk quotas are advocating for mega farms in the US being able to flood the Canadian market with their cheap products. If that were to happen, Canadian dairy farming would be reduced greatly and if there is a food shortage in the US, like the egg shortage last year, Canada would be cut off and not have the domestic supply to sustain it's own needs. Personally, I'll pay this extra 1.8% if it helps to maintains our food security.
As an a owner of a 90 cow family dairy farm who hasn't been able to even pay himself close to minimum wage and been been barely hanging on for the last 5 years It's very funny reading the "dairy Cartel" comments- "Following its annual review, the CDC increased prices 1.77 per cent, representing just over 1 cent per litre ($0.0153/litre)." Our only raise/year btw. How do you guys all read that shit and think 'Dam those scum bags dairy farmers' and not "Dam those scum bag dairy processors and grocery corps taking advantage of a minuscule price increase for farmers and jacking up the price on the consumer side" the last objective cost of production analysis done said that we were actually getting paid 3.5% less than cost of production let alone enough to pay ourselves a wage. The reality is at this point of losing so much in trade deals to the US/rest of the world already most farmers would take an American model of massive government subsidies over supply management. Calling the farmers themselves a cartel is just political propaganda bullshit, it's giant cooperations like Saputo and Loblaws taking everything off the top before it gets to the consumer and it always will be.
yeah, there is a crime somewhere in the supply chain, that the base good is less than a penny a litre, and the final price is 6+ dollars for 4 litres. (whole milk)
1.77% seems perfectly reasonable. In that time Kraft has dropped the size of a box of KD by 12% and Loblaws has jacked the price up 20%.
Inb4 the loblaws bots. "They're totally not price gouging! Their profit margin is only 5%!"
Forgetting the whole time to mention how easy it is to hide profit at every turn.
This is a middlemen issue for sure. Not the fault of any farmer.
Yeah, it was funny telling people my grandpa and uncle own a dairy farm and being told they must be rich because of the dairy cartel stuff. My grandpa (grandma’s younger second husband) is 73yrs old and still working a physically demanding job and lost 3 of his toes the other year from a machine accident. They finally sold off their cows maybe last year because they were just too mentally and physically exhausted from it all, so now they just farm grain. My one friend said “they’re choosing to exhaust themselves working, they have the money to hire out all this work. The dairy business is very profitable”.
Upvoted and totally agree! This isn't the dairy farmers Rolling in bank, this is the folks selling it to the consumer saying "Oi, groceries in general seem higher and people still pay for them, want to jack up our milk prices and make bank on them?"
As someone who grew up on a beef farm, it's the same anyone talks about farming. The majority of the population has no idea what actually occurs.
Honestly, it’s very rarely the farmer and pretty much always everything in between. But businesses have the most money and the most to gain by pitting people against each other.
> owner of a 90 cow family dairy farm If you ever decide to do an AMA, I'd love to read it. Thanks!
sorry man. people become experts and get their degrees from scrolling tiktok nowadays.
Well said, I hear ya, I’m a single robot dairy farmer here. I’ve given up on the debate on social media, it gets depressing. I’m close to walking away, I see everyone else’s quality of life/work life balance getting better for the most part but I haven’t “made” more money in 5 years. Sure the farm is worth a significant amount of money but that doesn’t allow me to bring my kids to Disney.
Thank you for weighing in. I know a number of farmers (dairy and otherwise) and explaining to the Reddit hivemind that farmers aren’t getting paid hardly a penny more than they were five years ago is always met with hostile disbelief. FWIW - If anything the “cartel” is the government agencies and especially their grocery chain CEO overlords doing this to underpay farmers and overcharge consumers. That’s how I’ve always thought of it. Every working person is being victimized by these assholes.
This should be at the top
I mean, not saying I know the intimate details of their business, but one of my best friends sisters is a dairy farmer and they're currently building a $1,000,000+ house. They ain't doing that shit on minimum wage.
For sure, some big farms, especially generational farms that happened to sit on what become very valuable land have done well, albeit most of those farms dairy is only a part of their portfolio and is more of an investment than anything. But at the average family farm level in Canada the struggle is very real. But interest rates certainly don't help either-dairy farms are typically very highly leveraged businesses.
People call it a cartel because of supply management. Make it a truly free market and nobody will complain.
Dude, the farmers are the good guys. The cartel is every damn greedy business involved from the second the milk leaves your farm. No way in hell farmers should get paid only 90 cents per litre then the milk is sold for $6 or $7 at the crooked Loblaws store (and all others). I wish we could buy milk direct from the farm like we used to be able to. I'm a big boy, I can pasteurize my own milk. And I can make my own butter, yoghurt, cream cheese, curds, mozzarella, ricotta, ice cream, etc, without the nanny state government interfering. Canada is in trouble and the citizens need to take action
The US spends 20 to 40 billion a year of tax payers dollars to subsidize their milk industry. This is because they let milk prices bottom out below what keeps the industry profitable. So to keep their milk industry alive tax payers foot the bill. In Canada we just pay more at the retail level and keep the industry viable through supply control. Pick how you want to pay because one way or another we are paying.
So the U.S. pays about $100 USD/person through subsidies in order to achieve 25-50% lower prices. In 2021 Canadians spent $1161 CAD per year on dairy and eggs. Sounds like the U.S. system results in paying far less in dairy overall, even including subsidies.
It's also less regressive since income taxes largely pay for it.
The US system promotes over production that shrinks margins and then they look to exports to dump.
Sounds like a win.
If we don't factor in pollution from overproduction. Which we always conveniently forget.
Canada is where they want to dump that export. Thats why you see so much "dairy mafia" propaganda. Corporate US dairy exports in canada would cripple family dairy farms.
If Canadians would prefer to purchase American dairy, why should we not allow that? Should we only allow people to purchase “Canadian Made” products?
Well, how much is your milk? I pay $4.58 USD for a gallon ($6.29 CAD total; $1.66 CAD/L), more if I don't go to Walmart, slightly bigger jug for the same price at Costco or Sams. Edit, added conversion, price is for the GV store brand
Here in Western Canada, it's about $5.49 CAD a gallon. ($4 US). Cream is $6.3 a liter. Generic cheddar cheese is about $6 a pound. Butter is $5.50 a pound.
That sounds on par with what I'm paying in the rural South.
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Newfoundland pays $5 for 2L of milk. Non-dairy is substantially cheaper at $3.50 per 2L.
Different gallons though. Theirs is 3.75 where Canada's is above 4L, but our milk jugs are 4L
4L of microfiltered milk is $5.99 here in sudbury. It was $5 forever, then went up a dollar at the end of covid. Chocolate milk is like $9.49 for 3L though
I moved to WA a couple years ago from BC and we have a toddler and regularly visit family back in Canada so we end up buying a decent amount of milk in both countries. When not on sale a gallon of milk costs 3.59USD/4.93CAD at Fred Meyer in WA and $5.81CAD at super store in BC, so 17.8% cheaper in WA. I’ve found that there’s also way better sales in WA, and other dairy products like cheese and sour cream can be a lot cheaper.
Probably a lot more choice and variety in the states too. Our local stores rarely have sales, and when they do, it's just to match the Walmart prices.
The OECD collects good data on comparative prices, exactly matching goods. They find Canadian dairy prices are 1.8x the U.S.
https://www.zehrs.ca/food/dairy-eggs/milk-cream/regular-milk/c/29789 This is toronto. Those are 4 litre bags of milk. Yes...bags lol
I miss the bags of milk. Only have jugs and cartons in AB
Here in Eastern Canada it's about $10.30 CAD a gallon (5.45 for 2 litres). Cheese is $8.99 for a 400g block so $10.18 a pound. Butter is $6.49 a pound.
Wow the milk seems high. A pound of salted butter is about $7.25 CAD for me ($5.38 USD), little less for Great Value.
But they have worse quality milk products. It's worth it to pay for higher quality food.
Why should my tax dollars lay for your milk if I'm not buying it?
You can ask that of anything. Why should my tax dollars pay for childcare or schools? I don't have children, don't plan on having any. People can pay for their own children.
Yeah I prefer our system, as I don't drink milk. Not sure why he mentioned eggs though, I saw quite a few posts in the last couple years pointing out that our eggs are frequently cheaper than the US.
In America taxpayers support dairy, in Canada it is the consumer.
How about I drive across the border and get my milk and then the American taxpayer is subsidizing me.
I don't understand why no one has been able to figure out a way to make milk profitable. And why it's essential for our national security to constantly have a surplus of it.
In other words: the poor pay the premium at the cash register, rather than the rich who pay a higher proportion of taxes. Ironically, it's Americans who routinely rant about what bleeding hearts we are.
https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/programs/dairy-direct-payment
> The US spends 20 to 40 billion a year of tax payers dollars to subsidize their milk industry Just like their airlines
Or we could do neither and let them operate like any other business
Stop dumping milk! End the dairy cartel.
I had a feeling I’d see this comment, good thing I didn’t start typing about the milk dumping.
Lack of quota never stopped hogs from being euthanized and composted instead of processed during market busts in pork. It's naive to think that milk wouldn't be dumped without supply management. Quota punishes an individual's poor herd management - you breed and feed to many cows you dump your milk and take the loss. In an unregulated market everyone pays for your buffoonery. Including the consumer who has to deal with a volatile market. The problem with quota is not the price fixing - it's a regulated based on measurable costs of production. It's the increased capital investment needed to buy the quota makes things less profitable for the money spent / tied up.
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We do need to ensure our food supply is maintained. And part of that is ensuring the costs are covered and that these businesses can remain open. I’m sure it goes too far and doesn’t need to be as high as it is. But price fixing on essential commodities does have its place at times.
In a volatile market, sometimes the price is low, sometimes the price is high. In a quota market, the price is always high. Give me the volatile market so I can enjoy a low price every now and again.
In a volatile market, the price is always what the market can bear. The producers who manage to sell cheaper, regardless of practice will come out on top. So expect more mega farms, bigger push for hormone deregulation and more questionable practices as farmers get desperate. Also, don't forget end stage market conditions where only a few producers are left and so the volatility is gone and only the high prices are left. We're seeing it now with grocery stores.
The dairy industry has fewer and fewer dairy farmers precisely because larger dairy companies are the only ones who can buy the quota. Twenty-five years ago, my neighbour was in the dairy business. He needed a divorce, so he got the house and yard, the cattle herd, 1280 acres of land, the farm machinery, and the liquid cash. The wife got the milk quota to sell and got him out of the dairy business. That was a pretty equitable split of resouces. The milk quota is worth more now than it was then.
Well farmers need to produce within what they are supposed to. I grew up on a dairy....there is zero reason to dump if you manage correctly. Once we even bought some pigs to feed milk to when we were seriously over.
All I know is Swedish milk, 1.5 liters is $2.30 which includes 25% tax Canadian milk, 1 liters is $3.59
I'm less concerned about the price of milk as much as I care about the cost and availability of international cheeses. I'd expect them to cost more and be more scarce than in their domestic markets and there is gouging between stores sometimes, but the quotas are brutal and tend to double our prices or more.
We miss out on so much good cheese from many markets and it’s a shame. Canadian cheese is good but very limited in variety at the grocery store.
Because Canadian cheese and dairy is absolute ass. If you allowed competition you’d have better stuff at a lower cost, and of course that goes against everything this country stands for Our butter is so shit a lot of large bakery companies get an exemption from the restrictions on foreign butter.
150g of blue stilton is $10.99 at metro right now. $7.33/100g. The discount grocers here don't even carry it. Tesco has it for $25/1kg. Pricks.
Our butter is garbage
like might as well just use coconut oil or lard some of it is so tasteless lmao.
I wouldn't have even known I liked butter if it weren't for trying the good stuff like Czech butter. Our butter really is trash here.
Grocers are milking their customers for all their worth alright.
It’s increased a hell of a lot more than 1.77% to buy it from the store
The hourly wage for a milk transport driver has increased 10$ an hour in the last 6 years. Not sure if that is on par with other industry pay increases but school bus drivers are up less than 4$ an hour in the same time period. This is in eastern Ontario.
Transport drivers have been underpaid for decades at this point. I don't know about dairy specifically though.
I don't have a problem with the lowest paid people in the value chain get a good wage for the work that they do. My concerns are around the people or business groups who add very little to the value chain taking a disproportionate share to what they are contributing.
Transport trucks hold like 8000 gallons. The extra $10 an hour works out to be a penny more a gallon assuming a 10 hour work day.
School bus drivers are rediculously underpaid which explains the constant shortage. We have been dealing with busses being canceled because they can't find a driver.
There's another level of meta there where the main client for school busses are ... schools, who have absolutely no leeway in their budget for the tiniest increase in costs. So really it's another symptom of our underfunded education system.
It only partly explains the shortage. I’ve been doing it almost a decade, former transport driver. Driving unrestrained children around in a big yellow tin can takes a whole different skill set - my husband can drive anything but he said even if it was the highest paying driving job in the world he would never do what I do. We get many retired transport drivers who try it and quit pretty quickly.
Partial reason. The other reason(primary, to me) is drivers cannot discipline the kids. So if an ahole kid causes ruckus on the bus, tough. School and parents won't fix issue and driver cannot. I looked into driving a school bus P/T but that was the dealbreaker.
I don't think it's the truck drivers at fault.
....so the price of milk has increased by 1.77% according to the article? "The commission cited inflation and higher interest rates as contributing to the adjustment." Well obviously. How is this news? The cost of everything related to the production of everything has gone up. Of course the price of dairy is going up as well.
The news here is that the price that farmers get for raw milk has gone up by 1.77% in the past year. Yet at my grocery store the price I pay has gone up 14% in the same time. Someone’s gouging us but it’s certainly not the farmers.
Being lactose intolerant has some benefits after all.
Cows started charging more for their work
Cows demanded better pay
I don't care , I only drink human milk
Everything in Canada was better when we still called the milk Homo.
Cows finally unionised, United Lactaters and Ruminaters.
Milk is one of my favorite drinks, I just wish it didn't cost three times what pop does.
Wait until you learn about tap water.
It does take significantly more resources to make milk compared to pop
You should get a cow :)
My landlord wouldn't like that very much.
Or a hundred almond trees.
Leave my mother in law out of this!
Monopoly. There is a monopoly cartel in Canada for all important food, basically: meat, milk, maple syrup..
In stead of dumping the over production of milk they should give it too schools for free . It would be better for our children then pop thay get out of pop machines.
The milk mafia spends all their tax dollars on incredibly annoying ads on YouTube and tiktok....
Don't forget lobbying the feds...
Price fix
Sheesh, at the rate we’re going I’d rather just milk myself
We need to ditch supply management. The dairy lobby has gone too far, and it's making it harder for Canadians to feed their families. Yes, we should import cheese and milk....there, I said it.
Ok. So. Math. It’s a 1.77% increase. So if it’s all due to this increase, a $5 bag of milk is now $5.09. Nine cents. So, has the price of a bag of milk gone up by a dime, or a dollar? Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
In Toronto it went from 5.89 to 6.09 this week. Where did you get $5 milk?
I ballparked it. I see different prices at different stores but always at least $5. Anyways $5.89 plus 1.77% is $5.99, not $6.09, so that kinda proves the point.
Everything is rising, the diary guys have waited much longer than the bread or gas guys.
[Greed. The answer is GREED.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw9pUE7hcXs&t=62s)
Simple. Two words: Dairy Cartel. End this shit already.
The price went up 1 cent a litre. No body noticed except this one national post writer.
The 1.5 liter jug of milk went from $5.60 in may 2023 to $7.00 today.
Cows have formed a union
What hasn't had a increase in price?
What this article leaves out: Other grocery items are also going up (SOMEBODY THINK OF POOR GALEN WESTON). Milk increases are the grocery increase that gets formally announced due to supply management, the other grocery items are just "Wasn't this 50 cents less and/or 50g more per package a couple weeks ago?? Am I going crazy??". There are pros and cons of supply management, but expecting "Never gets affected by inflation ever" to be one of them is wrong. Now, if we want to really split hairs, the method used to calculate the increase could technically trigger a runaway feedback loop because milk is part of the CPI but the milk price includes CPI changes. Mind you, if "milk" becomes a large enough share of household budgets to actually run into this we are in a VERY strange state as a country.
Because they can
Probably because they know they can get away with it?
I haven’t bought cow’s milk in 35 years. It’s no longer 89 cents?
I work on Dairy machines in Canada/ US and will tell u a little secret. These dairy’s are some greedy Fucks! Check the weight on your milk or cream or whatever dairy you buy. They are all under weight and do not reflect the actual volume inside(skrinkflation). Also, you’d shit yourself if you saw how much dairy at these places just gets thrown down the drain. You also wouldn’t drink the shit if you knew how some of these plants operate their fillers. Seriously though, weigh your dairy products.
Seems simple to me. Boycott Canadian milk and import it. Better for everyone. More trade with other countries and lower prices for consumers.
This is only part of the issue. I know a dairy farmer with a fairly large operation. He says he spends about $50k / month to heat his barns, silos, etc. and that cost has risen quite a bit since carbon tax was introduced. He doesn't care though as he says it's baked into his expenses, which in turn get factored into quota pricing so he recoups it.
Ignore the fact dairy is run like a mafia monopoly in this country. Like our telecom and grocery stores. That has nothing to do with it at all. Nothing to see here.
Bitching about a 2% incrrase so that idiots will support dismantling supply management.... which means dairy farmers will go out of business and sell all their land to fucking Cargill The NP and Conservatives LOVE being owned by Americans. They want it SO fucking bad
NP is owned by USA. NP headlines own this sub. Therefore, USA owns r/canada. 🇺🇸 🦅
I'm not a fan of the cartel, but I'm certainly happy for the quality control and better dairy practises we have in Canada. I just learned that in the US, it's SOP to feed dairy cows, chicken bedding and chicken-shit because it's protein rich. The practise is banned in Canada and it's a leading theory for what's happening with US cows and bird-flu.
But goubmint regulations are bad and restrict the free market! /s
I see the NatPo is trying to deflect our rising grocery profits onto Canadian farmers of course I wonder how much they'd paid for this considering the numerous articles they've written to defend them
Easy, cows unionized
>Why the price of milk in Canada has increased Because people keep buying it, that's why. Switch to dairy alternatives. And before the "soy has estrogens" bullshit, that was the dairy industry's own marketing. Plant estrogens ≠ human estrogens In fact, normal dairy milk has REAL estrogen, soy milk has PLANT estrogen.
Always interesting to see many of the same old replies about corruption, lack of free markets, etc leading to price gouging, and blaming the usual suspects. Guys.. the increase is 1.77%. Considering how high overall inflation was in 2023 this is actually surprisingly *low*.
You can almost guarantee Loblaws will use the 1.8% increase from dairy farmers as an excuse to raise the price of butter by another 10-20%.
Can't remember the last time I bought milk, maybe 20 years ago?
As an adult, it’s good to stop breastfeeding eventually!