Rural Connections Lessons from overpriced chicken breasts

I t all started with one reporter taking a simple, trivial picture of an overpriced pack of five boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The cost was $26.87 a kilo, a world-class sticker shocker, at least double what one would expect to pay for chicken breasts.

Within hours, the picture became the lightning rod for frustrated consumers on social media. Loblaw and Galen Weston – the company’s chairman, president, and well-known public persona of the company’s brand – became public enemy number one.

Attacks were instant, and mostly vicious.

On the surface, the collective uproar against Loblaw lacked any rational thinking. The chicken breasts in the picture were skinless, boneless, and free from hormones and antibiotics, which would make them premium products. The untrained eye may not have been able to see the “PC FF” on the label, which meant “Free From,” but it was there.

Other retailers in the Greater Toronto Area were even selling similar products at similar price points.

Furthermore, for