I have been writing about this for the past number of months as Walmart Canada started to open their chain of Supercenters and that there would be a food price fight in our backyard because the battle was on for the Canadian retail customer looking for a bargain.

That was further established last week as the U.S. chain announced that they were cutting prices on 10,000 items throughout their stores this month and that would effect every department in the giant stores. This is a Western Canadian promotion from Manitoba to BC. Customers are going to see things like milk, bread, butter and eggs reduced in price and that isn’t easy in Canada because of the control that their marketing board has on the industry. It is the first thing you notice when you buy groceries in the U.S. that the price of these particular products is up to half as much as we pay in Canada everyday.

Now we must see what the major players in this country do to counteract the Walmart challenge for more customers in their stores. We have some excellent merchants in the retail grocery business in Canada and the chains like Real Canadian Superstore, Safeway, IGA, Sobeys and the BC champion, Save-On-Foods.

Of course it would be wrong not to include Costco in the mix and how they will handle the situation will be interesting. The record shows that it is a goods player in the price game because of their record over the years and the store like the one in Kelowna takes about $2 million a week out of the market every week. It is a force to be reckoned with because the chain is so nimble in their moves in this awfully competitive market. It won’t be advertising its changes but their shoppers will know and the continued new brands they introduce to the marketplace will get stronger. The wholesale chain is just good at what they do and they do it well.

Walmart’s move in western Canada is significant because the company does business right across the country but this is where they have chosen to battle it out. Who is the winner? You are, the consumer if you shop at all stores and take advantage of the deals being offered. Not everyone will do that.

The question is: What will Walmart's competitors, such as Loblaws, do?

Probably not much, said Bill Chisholm, a retail analyst with MacDougall, MacDougall and MacTier in Toronto.

"It'll be interesting to see how the rest of them will react," Chisholm said.

"But I suspect no one will under price Walmart."

The analyst said the reason is what economists call economies of scale: Because of the sheer amount of goods it sells, Walmart can afford price cuts that could be difficult for competitors, such as Loblaw's Real Canadian Superstore division, to match.

But still, Walmart's greater presence is helping keep prices low.

"I would think (competitors' prices) will stay relatively close, but they will not undercut (Walmart)," Chisholm said.

The retail giant announced Friday it is cutting prices on more than 10,000 items in all departments in March, including food, as it's trying to swallow a greater part of the western Canadian market.

The cuts are confined to stores from Manitoba to B.C., and include price reductions of such staples as milk, bread, eggs and butter, as well as toilet paper.

"We are committed to being a price leader in every area of our business," Duncan Mac Naughton, Walmart's chief merchandising officer, said in releasing the new prices Friday.

As we have been writing about for months the aggressive expansion of the U.S. chain into the western market always meant competition that would in the end benefit the customer.

By all accounts, February was a brutal month for CNN. The cable news network finished in fifth place for both total day and prime time for the month and its prime time hosts hit new ratings lows.

Rumors swirled this week that CBS News was courting Anderson Cooper. If this is true, the anchor's February ratings could provide CBS with some leverage in salary negotiations as "AC360" had its worst month ever. Compared to a year ago, Cooper's ratings are down 59% and a whopping 62% in the 25-54 demographic.

Cooper's prime time partners didn't fare any better. Campbell Brown was down 50% in total viewers from last year and Larry King dropped 55%. According to TVNewser, "Larry King Live" saw its lowest number of total viewers in at least 13 years.
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Mac's Convenience Stores and Seattle's Best Coffee LLC, part of Starbucks Corporation, have entered into an agreement for Mac's to exclusively brew Seattle's Best Coffee(R) in Ontario in the convenience store channel. This agreement expands the more than 14-year relationship between the brands and leverages each company's world-class capabilities with the aim of giving Mac's customers a great cup of coffee. As part of this agreement, Mac's will expand its offering of Seattle's Best Coffee(R) from its current 290 convenience stores across four provinces in Western Canada to another 600 locations across Ontario.

Seattle's Best Coffee first started roasting coffee back in 1970, and today is one of the most recognized specialty coffee brands in North America.

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Mexico’s new passport rules came into effect this month for USA and Canada visitors and as I look at the press release and I can’t see anything that will affect Canadian travel. We all travel with passports because it is the only way to get back into this country and that is one of the new rules is that you have to have a passport to get into Mexico in the first place.

Exempt from the new rule are visitors to border regions who remain in the country for less than 72 hours or cruise ship passengers who briefly disembark will not be required to present a passport.

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Tim Hortons has announced expansion plans for both sides of the border. There will be nine hundred new stores in Canada and 300 in the U.S. in a three year plan for the Canadian company. Sixty of the U.S. stores will be a new upscale model featuring enhanced finishing touches, fireplaces, lighting and seating areas.

The company has 563 stores south of the border now. In Canada 3,600 stores. Most of the new stores will be in Western Canada and Quebec. The product line will be broadened somewhat but they are not telling us what that means at the moment. It was announced a few months ago that Tim Hortons U.S. was going into a deal with the Cold Stone Creamery people for dual stores in the American market and that concept is also being brought to Canada in at least sixty stores to begin with I understand. That’s all I need, donuts and ice cream in the same location. My dream has come true!

Every time you turn around today another retailer has added food items as a new profit center to their retail mix. Every other service station, Shopper’s Drug Mart and Canadian Tire came to mind first although both The Bay and Sears are talking groceries as well. I believe The Bay has already started in markets in eastern Canada.

Shopper’s seems to be the most successful in this move with their food section. The company has decided to create their own house brands like they have done so well with in the drug stores.

Then along comes Walmart to make a statement about the future plans it has for Canada and these plans call for up to forty new or remodelled stores. These will all be super-centers. This probably means a super-center for Penticton this year?

The regular supermarkets like Real Canadian Superstore, Save-On-Foods, Safeway, and IGA have done very well with their house brands for the last few years and the consumer has benefited because of the lower prices for the unadvertised and the quality of the products that are being produced.

Walmart is one of the few retailers in the expansion mode these days although we are still scheduled for a new Real Canadian Superstore in West Kelowna over the next year. The American company Walmart said it will invest $500 million in Canada for expansion creating 6,500 jobs in construction and staff.

As a group Canadian retailers have emerged from the slow down stronger than expected by focusing on cost cutting and sales. There were predictions by all the experts in 2008 that retail was going to suffer during the 2009 recession and that turned out to not be the case. Our retailers have a good reputation for the management of their firms and it has paid off again.

Out of the fray there is Costco, the wholesale club we like to think is exclusive, that card we pay for takes us behind the velvet ropes. But all the changes taking place in the retail world have affected Costco as well because they can only lower their price so far. Costco is a different shopping experience. It is a planned trip. People like to shop at Costco and get the bargains and then tell everyone how smart they were in doing so.

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I always watch and listen to what Warren Buffet has to say. The billionaire investor sees a big payoff when the U.S. housing market at last recovers in 2011. Which, if he is right is good news for the lumber industry in this country. The so called Oracle of Omaha and head of Berkshire Hathaway gave a wide ranging view of the economy and a more upbeat out than we have seen in months.

I realize that the recession has hit hard with jobs all over both our countries but it’s hard to tell when you are out there in traffic, in a waiting line or when you go out to eat or go shopping.

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We might as well get ready because we are going to be paying more for gasoline for our cars this summer even though market forces say we shouldn’t be. Is there any logic to such a production? You have paid more at the pumps in twenty-four of the last twenty-six years in April. The demands in China are raising the prices world wide.

All refineries according to what I have read are producing about eighty per cent capacity now and there is no real big demand for gasoline on the home front.

Supply here is very good with inventories on both sides of the border about what the industry calls the five year average. Does all this make sense? No. But does the price of gas ever make sense?

Canada is the No. 1 supplier of imported oil to the U.S.

Gasoline prices are expected to increase along with demand as the weather warms and drivers do more traveling.

Oil prices have absolutely nothing to do with the events in the real world.

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It was good news to hear that Laura Secord, the legendary Canadian chocolate maker, was back in Canadian hands as Nutriat Inc. a Quebec candy maker, who was already supplying to the almost 100-year-old chain. When the Chicago company Archibald Candy Corp. took over the famous chain it became almost a disaster and saving the 127 store chain was important. There were 160 stores at one time. We used to have at least two Laura Secord stores in the valley just a few years ago and that could have been three outlets. Someone made great ice cream for those stores.

What does this mean to the film industry in B.C. with Hollywood mounting an advertising campaign to their film crews to come on home? It is expected to start in April and the idea is to get those film shoots back in California as quickly as they can. There are new incentives to bring them back because California faced a drop of 31 per cent last year in local production. The state is down sixty per cent since 2003 in local film projects. With many locations in Canada vying for productions there is a lot of money on the table form Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and of course here in B.C. The Vancouver studio complex is a huge money draw for the province. Every aspect of the film industry is represented in Vancouver and the dollars that can be spent are important to the province. The battle lines seem to be drawn again but this time California is spending dollars to make something happen if they can.
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The surprising interest in the U.S. for curling has become unbelievable with headline stories in the news media. Papers like the Los Angeles Times and The N.Y. Post ran stories and pictures. Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard of Calgary has become the darling of the media as well. She is a hot chick south of the border and the Americans have found a new sport attraction and they are fascinated by it.

NBC has come through with a lot of action on one of their four channels covering the games. The US hockey team beats Canada in that first round the Los Angeles Times runs a front page story on curling. A new cult favourite.

It looks like the big winner in the 2010 Winter Games is the red mittens from The Bay with the number approaching over 3.5 million pairs being sold. There should be a lot of money in the pot for the Canadian athletes when this is all over. It was an afterthought that the gloves became a part of the games at all. The item was created after the Bay officials, who did all of the clothing for the games, decided that the white gloves they had chosen for the torch bearers didn’t work and that something was needed to brighten things up and the red glove idea was born. They were the last item ordered and when the first shipment of 300,000 arrived they were sold within seven days. The officials knew they had a winner. The best selling item in the clothing line was the fleece hoodie.

South Korea’s Kim Yu-Na the figure skater under the tutelage of Canada’s Brian Orser already earned an estimated $9 million a year in sponsorship dollars before coming into this year’s games. Now what will the number be?

The numbers for the big game between Canada and USA for the broadcast were 16.6 viewers in Canada and in the U.S A. 27.6 were tuned in. When Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner 80 cent of Canada was watching TV. At the peak between 2:30 and 3 pm with the game tied 34.8 million people in the U.S. were watching.

CTV won every night during the games with their coverage. The hockey produced the largest TV audience in Canadian history.

NBC did a super job in promoting Canada to the world with their broadcast coverage and their in special reports look at Canada as a place to visit. It was well done. We watched the entire games on NBC because we were south and after you sit back and realize you’re visiting and their teams come first I can’t complain about the coverage. Bob Costas has always been one of my favourite broadcasters anyway.

I have always had a curiosity where all the money goes that comes into the till during the Olympic Games. The international body IOC is said to take 12.75 per cent of the TV rights and 20 per cent of the sponsorship money. This the golden egg for the IOC and they give up nothing. The amazing numbers generated for IOC is overwhelming and all goes to their headquarters in Europe. The bills we paid for executives etc. were probably staggering and it is not something we will ever probably learn the true numbers for.

It may be a bit of a stretch but what the hell, Canadian athletes owned the podium with their gold medal wins. The IOC when they put up their rankings after the game should have historically done so by the gold medals. Canada spent $117 million on its elite athletes.

Where have they gone? The gloves, the stick and the puck from the winning goal in the U.S.A./Canada game is missing as I write. After scoring the goal to win the gold medal Sydney Crosby threw them off and was surrounded by his players and nobody was thinking at that time about history. Everything went into the air after the overtime goal and the 3-2 win. Now the Hockey Hall of Fame wants to put them on display and no one seems to know where they are.

Apparently, a Canadian gold medal really brought out the gold cards with electronic transactions spiking up 117 per cent after Alex Bilodeau's big win.

In Blaine WA, just south of the Peace Arch, a huge banner was strung across their main street that read “2010 Olympic Visitors Welcome to Blaine where America begins.”

Maybe you've heard about the fabulous miracle fruit, a sort of West African berry that temporarily transforms everything you eat afterward into a sweet treat: hot peppers, lemons, rhubarb, you name it. Now you can buy miracle fruit in Canada -- and in tablet form.

Mberry Miracle Fruit Tablets contain zero calories and cost about $16 for a 10-tablet package. Order online at (mymiracleberry.com).

Each package comes with a best-before date, so don't keep them too long. Or order the fresh, real deal: five for $20, plus $20 shipping and handling.

Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), sometimes known as the Miracle Berry, is a plant native to West Africa. The berry has a mildly sweet flavor however, the fruit is treasured not for its own taste, but for the fruit’s unique effect on the taste buds.

Miracle Fruit contains a lipoprotein called miraculin, which binds to the tongue’s taste buds when the fruit is consumed. Miraculin acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids, causing bitter and sour foods to taste sweet, temporarily. This effect usually lasts between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

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Today high blood pressure is the leading cause of death in the world. It’s estimated that 25% of North Americans have hypertension. Studies show that one in two Canadians over age 65 is a carrier. South of the border a recent study said that at age 75, nine out of ten people have high blood pressure. If hypertension is present, you and I have three times the risk of dying from a heart attack or a stroke.

This is all about my continuing battle with salt and the products that we buy from the shelf or eat in our favorite restaurant. We consume too much salt.

Tim Horton’s chicken noodle soup has 880 mg of salt, McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese 1,100 mg. Swiss Chalet Chicken Pot Pie 1,220, a ham and cheese sandwich with mustard 2,340 and a Reuben sand 3,270. I do like Reuben sandwiches.

To decrease our salt intake we must learn how to read labels. Be a smart consumer. Shopping is a job, not a run and grab operation like so many of us do today buying the brand we saw advertised on TV.

You have to know the salt numbers. A recent report on heart attacks pointed directly at the young people today and the way they eat on the run. They don’t give a moment’s thought to the salt intake. Why would they, they like the taste. What’s salt got to do with eating healthy?

We have so much to learn.

How to Feel Better When You're Stressed

Here are some tips on how to make yourself feel better when you’re stressed:

1. Calm down

Before anything else, calm yourself down. Don’t panic. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

2. Feed your mind with positive thoughts

When you’re depressed, it’s easy to fall into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts. It’s important that you break this cycle. To do that, feed your mind with positive thoughts. You may read spiritual texts, motivational books, or inspiring quotes. You may also listen to positive tapes.

3. Remember good things

Direct your mind to the positive. Remember the good things in your life. Remember the good people around you.

4. Look at the big picture

An event that seems bad might not seem that bad if you look at the big picture. Put the event in context.

5. Believe that everything will be all right

What you believe has a big effect on you. If you believe that things will go wrong, that would usually be the case. On the other hand, if you believe that everything will be all right, you will have a winning attitude.

6. Exercise

When you’re depressed, take time to exercise. Exercise relieves the symptoms of depression and anxiety.

7. Forgive

Sometimes one reason you feel bad is because you don’t forgive. Perhaps you had made mistakes in the past and you blamed yourself for it. You need to forgive yourself. Or perhaps someone mistreated you. You need to forgive them.

8. Take action

Things won’t get better if you just sit and do nothing. Instead of thinking about how bad things are, think of what you can do to solve the problem and take action.

9. Say something positive

Negative words have devastating effect on your confidence and motivation. So whenever you’re about to say something negative, stop yourself and take a deep breath. Reframe what you’re going to say and make it positive.

10. Think about other people

One of the best ways to make you feel better is simply by taking the focus away from yourself. Start thinking about other people and how you can help them. When you do that, your problems will no longer seem so hard.

Source: Life Optimizer December 16, 2009

Andrew Topf wrote a good piece on our own Sysco Foods operation in Kelowna for Worksafe BC. Let me quote from the article.

Good relationships are built on security, trust, and friendship. While these words are normally used to describe bonds between friends or spouses, they could also be attributed to Sysco Kelowna's relationship with its employees -or 'associates', as the food warehousing and distribution company prefers to call them.

In phone conversations with operations vice-president John Younger and members of his management team, it quickly becomes apparent that Sysco is a company that cares deeply about the safety of its workers. The story begins with the facts.

The Kelowna operation has an injury rate one quarter of that of similar food and beverage distribution companies in B.C., according to WorkSafeBC stats. Its top warehouse group recently turned the calendar on 1,200 days without an injury. That's more than three years injury-free, or to put it into production perspective, 12-million boxes lifted, stored, driven, and carried without harm to a worker.

How did they do it? It all began around eight years ago, when Sysco Kelowna looked at their injury stats and realized they were showing an injury in their facility every 47 days. Most of the problems revolved around ankle and back injuries - incidents which aren't surprising, considering workers handle between 120,000 and 150,000 heavy boxes a week, delivering dry goods, fresh produce, and frozen foods to restaurants, hotels, and institutions.

"We were good at fast, but we weren't as good at safe," Younger says.
Sysco employees assess workplace risks - one task at a time. Younger recalls the company's approach before implementing a comprehensive safety program and before the company began looking closely at its safety.

Sysco Kelowna's day-to-day, continual focus on safety is reflected in their COACH card program. Weekly safety meetings give workers an opportunity to identify hazards, and a group stretch keeps legs and backs limber before
employees start their shift.

Some of Sysco Kelowna's key safety initiatives -implemented without prompting from WorkSafeBC -govern the proper use of machinery and improved driver training.

Warehouse manager Bob Strugnell said deliveries personnel are highly injury-prone, because every box is delivered individually on a handcart. Injury prevention effort targets driver-delivery hazards. "They have to go up and down ramps so there's a lot of physicality at the driver end of things," he says. "They're at risk of back injuries and slipping, because they're delivering goods in all kinds of conditions, such as up and down stairs and in bad weather."

In addition, deliveries made to schools, hospitals, or high-traffic areas, such as malls, pose risks to other vehicles or pedestrians. Delivery truck drivers are therefore trained in the widely recognized Smith System of driver safety training. The system instructs more than 30,000 fleet drivers annually on how to avoid collisions and improve their driving habits, according to the Smith System web site. On the machinery side, Sysco Kelowna has an intensive forklift operator training program that "exceeds WorkSafeBC standards," according to Strugnell. In this case, new operators must go through classroom training and obtain a forklift drivers' licence. Both new and seasoned operators are re-tested at regular intervals.

Warehouse workers are not allowed to be within 12.2 m (40 ft.) of a forklift when its mast is raised with a load. It was that important safety practice - along with the overall layout of the warehouse - that impressed WorkSafeBC occupational safety officer Pattie Fair when she inspected the facility recently.

Fair says the company not only had a safety plan it was well implemented. The warehouse was well-organized, she points out, with good first aid and emergency procedures in place, chemicals stored in a separate area, and notably, a plan for directing traffic, with one-way traffic through "pedways between racking" and "no entry" signs through areas where machinery was in use. "They'd actually designated their traffic, just like you would in downtown Kelowna," Fair says.

WorkSafeBC industry specialist Rose McDonald says a key factor in the success of Sysco Kelowna's safety program is their ability to incorporate safety into the work culture. While some companies see safety as "extra work," Sysco sees it as integral to their other business goals, McDonald says.

"They've made safety part of the high production culture, so that everybody does their bit. But it's not extra work," she says. "They make sure that when they're training someone on how to do things efficiently and properly, they include safety training."

Indeed, Younger emphasized that being safe is not only "the right thing to do," it also makes good business sense. The operation has gone from paying out $60-70,000 in lost wages annually to injured workers, to around $3,000 a year.

"We're saving an awful lot in compensation to associates," says Younger, who goes on to conclude, with characteristic understatement, that safety isn't really all that complicated.

"The stuff we do, anybody can do it's not like we've discovered the golden grail for safety," he says. "We just pay enough attention to it, and we respect it enough, that over time it's become a very big part of our company."