Canada grocery inflation: Amid rising prices, grocery store workers face increasing abuse from customers

“The customer is always right.” That’s a phrase a Toronto woman who has been working at a downtown Sobeys store for 15 years says she often hears from increasingly disgruntled customers. Irked by inflation and pandemic restrictions, she says it’s a commonly spat excuse for treating grocery store workers poorly.

“I’ve been called ‘stupid’ if I made a mistake ringing something through the till,” shares the employee, who Yahoo Canada has agreed to let remain anonymous.

“I had a customer get upset at me because the customer service line was too long, yet the express lane was open and had no one in it. Still, he just threw his groceries down and left. Customers yell at me when I’m following policy for returns, refunds and price checks. I chose to continue wearing a mask after the pandemic mandates were lifted, and once had a customer call me a ‘sheep’ because of that, while others give me dirty looks.”

Over the past year, since grocery prices have risen across the country, many Canadian grocery store workers have shared similar experiences with customers on social media. That’s after many expressed having similar experiences during and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were simultaneously heralded as “heroes.”

So, what gives?

According to Statistics Canada, grocery prices have indeed gone up, by 21.4 per cent compared to three years earlier, which has also led to higher levels of food insecurity. As a result, consumers have become more mindful of where they shop, opting for lower prices and discount stores. While the Canadian government has asked companies to work to stabilize prices, consumers are fed up, with some even boycotting all Loblaw-affiliated stores chains in protest.

Many consumers are also taking out some of their rage on grocery workers. A new Gallup survey found that 43 per cent of U.S. employees feel customers have become more demanding and are expecting higher levels of service since the pandemic. That includes demanding better quality and prices, wanting “to be first” and waited on immediately, and behaving less tolerant when perceiving failure or error. It all leaves little surprise as to why rude customers are a big reason why those in customer service are often keen to quit.

Expert: Employees' duties 'not necessarily part of the job description'

“Grocery store workers have had to take on new roles of policing people,” says Emily Duncan, a post-doctoral fellow at University of Regina who has surveyed and been researching grocery store workers since the start of the pandemic. “They’re having to tell people they need to maintain social distance, to step back, to remain behind the counter; these weren’t things that anybody had to do before and are not necessarily part of the job description.”

Duncan says this new double duty has likely become more common since inflation has affected grocery prices so severely. As has dealing with loss prevention, because as prices go up, there tends to be a rise in theft. She notes, too, having spotted security guards at grocery stores in recent months where they hadn’t been employed before.

“The abuse definitely makes me feel like I’m not appreciated,” the Toronto Sobeys worker says. “During the pandemic, when I was considered an essential worker, customers didn’t treat me like one.”

Noticing it was often those who worked in customer service — “no matter your age, race, or seniority” — receiving the brunt of customers’ fury (which could range from rude remarks to outright violence), she recently made the shift from cashier to courtesy clerk.

“I just couldn’t handle it mentally anymore,” she explains. “Customers have a tendency to be rude to cashiers, but not as rude to the person stocking shelves or carrying out their groceries for them. It’s like they blame the cashiers for all the store’s problems.”

'Very high' distress among grocery store workers: Study

She’s not alone. A 2021 University of Arizona study discovered that distress among grocery workers tends to be “very high” largely due to customer hostility and feeling unsafe in the workplace. When the pandemic began, and rates of depression and anxiety rose in Canada and the U.S., it was more than twice the national average for grocery workers in the U.S.

This is partly because, according to Duncan, many grocery workers don’t have the support they need from a manager to help enforce rules in their stores. Many also work for very low wages and are exposed to more health risks, only adding to their daily stressors.

“In an average Canadian grocery store, you're going to see a lot more part-time jobs than full-time jobs, and most are at minimum wage, which hasn’t kept up with the living wage,” says Duncan, noting there’s a level of respect that’s warranted. “A lot of people think that working in a grocery store is an unskilled job. But in my research, I’ve found there is a level of skill required for the level of customer service that people expect.”

For instance, she notes that the average grocery store has 40,000 items in it, and these workers are expected to know where just about everything — from a stick of deodorant to McIntosh apples — can be found. And of course, many of those items come with produce codes that have to be memorized and recalled quickly.

“There's an art to packing bags so that your eggs don't get crushed,” adds Duncan. “A lot of thought and care goes into making the grocery store a place where people can go and efficiently get what they need.”

'The people who work in grocery stores are not able to afford the food that's being sold'

But demanding basic respect isn’t enough. According to that same Gallup poll, staffing shortages, limited training resources and equipment, and unclear standards for customer service are some of the key barriers to delivering “exceptional” customer service.

And no, advanced tech isn’t always the answer either. Duncan explains, “Increasingly, in grocery stores across the country, you’ll see self-checkouts. When Ontario was trying to raise the minimum wage to $15, Galen Weston was saying, ‘We'll just put in more self-checkouts.’ That actually doesn’t solve any of the labour problems grocery stores are facing. It's hugely alarming to see that the people who work in grocery stores are not able to afford the food that's being sold. And besides, people still need to ask where things are, and many don’t even want to use self-checkout because they don’t want to look up product codes.”

Meanwhile, labour unions have been limited in how much they’ve been able to help. While they were able to push for a rise in essential worker pay during the early part of the pandemic, they “don’t have much strength in trying to direct these conversations now” as monopolistic grocery chains are still the ones setting the standard in Canada, Duncan says.

When asked what she believes could make customers kinder and more respectful, the Toronto Sobeys worker says, “If customers spent just a day in our shoes, they’d maybe understand that working in a grocery store isn’t as easy as they think it is. For most of us, it’s our livelihood.”

Which is why, Duncan says, it’s important to remember when the country labelled grocery store workers essential. She says, “That is really distant from our minds now. We need to remember that time. We need to use our energy to hold monopolistic grocery chains accountable. While they are accountable to shareholders, they are not accountable to the Canadian public, and they are increasingly not accountable to their workers.”

Her advice? The next time you’ve got shopping to get done, visit and support your local independent grocer, because they’re not only the ones creating better working conditions and safe spaces, but they pay their workers better, too.