Save-On-Foods wants to give you money

For those of you who are familiar with the free $25 Loblaw card that was offered last week (as of Jan 8th) to make up for the bread price-fixing debacle, Save-On-Foods -- who was not involved in the scandal -- is making a goodwill gesture of offering their own $25 rebate. It'll be applied to your "More Rewards" card, if you have one.

Now, bear with me while I share my musings on the matter -- and feel free to add your own or comment in any way.

First, this is an ingenuous PR ploy to turn things around and make Loblaws look great. I mean... shit happens and it's how you fix it that counts, right? Unless, of course, your screw-up makes your customers more wary of your questionable business tactics in the future. Sorry if I sound a little bitter, but this is tied to the same company who closed down the fisheries in eastern and western Canada some years back, putting a lot of good people out of work to make a quick buck. But I digress.

In addition to salvaging what's left of their reputation, approximately six million people are happily submitting their name, date of birth, address, email and other contact information in the hopes of being one of the lucky registrants to receive $25 worth of free groceries. The company has stated that they won't pass on this info to any third-party companies, but many of you are already familiar with how this can be worked around to their advantage. That being said, of course I submitted my info because that's a week's worth of groceries for us.

Also, along the lines of brilliant ways to score your details, Save-On-Foods will probably also see a huge increase in subscriptions to their "More Rewards" program. I'd be curious to know just how many people sign up because of this $25 rebate. We already have a card because we're highly susceptible to freebies. And Save-On-Foods, although not within walking distance, offers some good prices, quality food and some custom food items we like. (Did I just inadvertently do an ad for them? You owe me, Darrell!)

Secondly, these grocer giants will probably finagle their way out of this to the point where they won't end up footing the bill. Would insurance cover something like this? Or in the case of Save-On-Foods they'll just go after the guilty parties for compensation. Regardless, having people's full contact info is certainly worth $25 to these chains. George Weston owns most of Canada anyway, right? Now he knows where you live. And me. Shit. Oh well, at least I'm getting a few meals out of this.

Which brings me to my next point. Doesn't this just smack of some parable gone awry. Not like Jesus turning a few loaves of bread into many to feed the masses. No, Loblaws does just the opposite and makes their bread unaffordable for the masses. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the religious type, but I couldn't help draw a parallel here. I think Weston and his cronies need to make more of a goodwill gesture before we even consider forgiving this kind of unethical discrepancy. Like, I don't know, maybe committing to making a substantial effort to ensuring that no homeless person in Canada ever goes hungry? Too much?

On that note, the head of food banks in BC, Canada is suggesting that people consider donating their gift cards to them. I like that idea. But since we're recipients of the food bank, we'll be keeping ours and buying lots of bread with it. And maybe some chocolate. But not tobacco, alcohol or lottery cards, because they were quite clear about that.

For those who don't know anything about this, here's some info: